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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27030976">A Lesson in Projection</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowTabby/pseuds/ShadowTabby'>ShadowTabby</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Persona 4, Persona Series</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon, Externalized Homohpbia, Friends to Lovers, I really love Yosuke, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Spoilers, growing as a person, questioning identity</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 17:33:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>20,531</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27030976</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowTabby/pseuds/ShadowTabby</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After encountering Kanji's shadow in the "Bad, Bad Bathhouse," Yosuke Hanamura questions his relationship with his best friend and "partner," Souji Seta. In an escalating series of attempts to prove to himself and others that he's completely, 100% straight, Yosuke might just have to accept some aspects of his shadow self he missed the first time around.</p><p>AKA I'm playing Persona 4 Golden for the first time and writing fic to explain/explore/cope with Yosuke's homophobic behavior on the school camping trip. Because I can make sense of it for myself, even if the game won't!</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hanamura Yosuke/Narukami Yu, Hanamura Yosuke/Persona 4 Protagonist, Hanamura Yosuke/Seta Souji, Implied Chie/Yukiko, Implied Daisuke/Kou</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>190</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>In which Yosuke catches a whiff of some elements of his shadow he hasn't dealt with yet, and quickly represses them.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As they trudge back through Inaba’s shopping district to Kanji’s house, Yosuke tries not to think too hard about how he must look with the other boy’s arm slung around his shoulder. Kanji can barely walk on his own right now, he’s so worn down from fighting his shadow, but Yosuke knows how gossipy the Inaba locals can be.</p><p>
  <em>Oh, there goes the manager’s son with that biker thug! </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Isn’t it enough for Junes to undercut all our business? Now they have gang ties too?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Well, I did hear he got arrested for waving swords around outside Junes the other day!</em>
</p><p>Well, his father won’t care at least. He never cares. He just does as the Junes corporation tells him. It’s Yosuke who will have to take the brunt of the rumors, as usual. The other kids will glare at him again in school, and Morooka-sensei will badmouth him even more . . . but, strangely, he’s more at peace with that now than he used to be. He has Chie, Yukiko, and, most importantly, his partner, Souji. And apparently Kanji now, whose friendship probably comes with perks. Who’s going to mess with the fifteen-year-old punk who ran the biker gangs out of town all on his own, after all?</p><p>“Uh, senpai?”</p><p>Yosuke’s mouth twitches upward. A punk kouhai, huh? Moving to the sticks has been a real trip.</p><p>“What’s up? We’re almost back to your place.”</p><p>“Wha-? Oh, right.” Kanji is blinking around in the dim evening light, obviously still disoriented. He leans most of his weight on Yosuke’s shoulder, staggering as his knees intermittently give out. </p><p>“Hey, maybe it kind of looks like we were in a fight,” Yosuke tries to joke, shooting the dazed boy a wink. “Like we got out our ‘man feelings’ and now we’re stronger than ever, like in an anime.”</p><p>Kanji’s thin eyebrows knit in confusion. “Wha . . . I’ve never been a fight like that before.”</p><p>Yosuke sighs and then adjusts their position so Kanji’s weight is a bit more evenly distributed. His arms are really going to hurt tomorrow from the exertion of fighting shadows and now propping up a much taller person. “Ah, I guess what I’m trying to say is don’t worry about it, we don’t look weird.”</p><p>“Weird?” Despite the fact that Kanji is obviously too exhausted to actually fight, Yosuke tenses at the sharpness in his voice. “What’s weird?”</p><p>“Oh . . . forget it. Let’s just get to your house. I bet your mom is worried.”</p><p>“No, listen.” Kanji stops moving, which forces Yosuke to stop; he’s not strong enough to drag even a barely conscious Kanji anywhere. “I . . . I have to tell you something.”</p><p>In the middle of the street in one of the oldest neighborhoods in Inaba with surely many prying eyes upon them, Kanji turns Yosuke to face him with what must be the last of his strength. Then, hands still firmly clutching Yosuke’s shoulders, he looks him dead in the eye with surprising intensity and clarity.</p><p>“I’m sorry about what my shadow said to you and Seta-senpai in the, uh, bathhouse.”</p><p>Yosuke blinks up at his kouhai. “I don’t . . . follow . . .”</p><p>“He said, ‘the three of you should be boyfriends.’ And like, I’m sorry about that, er, if it made you uncomfortable. Also, maybe this, uh, sounds weird, but I don’t want to be your boyfriend. Not because you’re not cool, senpai! I just don’t see you that way.”</p><p>“Oh.”</p><p>A buzzing starts in Yosuke’s ears. To be honest, in the victorious rush of saving another potential victim of the Inaba killer, he’d forgotten what the scantily clad Shadow Kanji had yelled at him and Souji earlier that evening. They’d popped out of the TV, he’d volunteered to walk Kanji home, and his brain had apparently immediately repressed it. Now Kanji is throwing it in his face again, forcing him to confront it.</p><p>“I mean, it’s fine . . .” he mumbles, unable to meet Kanji’s piercingly earnest gaze. “It wasn’t really you, anyway, like . . .” he tries to shrug within Kanji’s grasp.</p><p><em>Yeah, it’s fine. I mean, I’m obviously not like </em>that<em> so there’s no point in making a big deal about it . . .</em></p><p>“Okay . . . and like, I don’t like Seta-senpai like that either, and I’d never want to get in the way of anything with you guys.”</p><p>“Wait . . . do you think . . . me and . . . S-Souji?” Yosuke is sputtering, and that probably looks really incriminating. The buzzing intensifies, and there’s a weird fuzz at the edge of his vision. “S-Stop projecting on me! I’m not like that! And S-Souji isn’t either, so don’t get any f-funny ideas!”</p><p>He turns away sharply, wresting his shoulders out of Kanji’s grip and causing him to stumble. Guilt prompts Yosuke to catch his kouhai’s elbow before he falls.</p><p>“Sorry,” Yosuke mumbles, willing his heartrate to return to normal. “Let’s just forget it, okay? It’s over now.”</p><p>They’re silent the rest of the way to Kanji’s family’s textile shop. Yosuke knows he overreacted and to be fair, Kanji is exhausted and probably doesn’t understand what he’s saying. He shouldn’t have snapped. Snapping is what people with stuff to hide do. But he doesn’t have anything to hide! He and Souji are really just friends. Can’t two guys be close without people making assumptions about them? Shouldn’t that be normal?</p><p>He’s still reassuring himself this way as he bids Kanji’s tearfully grateful mother goodnight. He’s not even sure what kind of excuse he comes up with for Kanji’s condition. Hopefully it’s believable enough.</p><p>
  <em>Oh hi, Tatsumi-san. Yes, what happened to your son. See, some psychopath threw him into an alternate dimension inside all of our TVs, and my friends and I spent several days fighting our way through demonic shadow beings with these magical “other selves” we call personas to rescue him. No need to thank us! Oh, by the way, your son’s cognitive world looks like a men’s bathhouse and he’s probably gay. Have a good night!</em>
</p><p>Yeah, hopefully he didn’t say any of that.</p><p>Yosuke shudders and hugs himself against a sudden evening breeze. He didn’t think to bring a jacket when he leaped into the TV in the electronics’ section of Junes this afternoon. The spring night has turned chilly and the fog is building up around him. It hits him again that they probably got to Kanji just in time. Which is definitely a good thing, he’s really relieved. But he’d be lying if he said Kanji’s shadow-self hadn’t unsettled him.</p><p>The streetlights flicker on above him. Their beams reflect off the fog, casting eerie shadows on the shuttered buildings of the shopping district. Yosuke doesn’t want to think about how close he must be to where Saki-senpai probably died. He picks up his pace, almost-but-not-quite running, like a prey animal trying to avoid attention. He doesn’t want to be the next person hanging from a telephone pole, and who knows where that creep is lurking or what they know.</p><p>The fog thins closer to his house, but he doesn’t start to relax until he’s through the door and pulling off his shoes. The familiar sounds of his father watching the evening news and his mother cleaning the dinner dishes help him shake off a bit more of his instinctive fear. They foiled the killer again.</p><p>He’s allowing himself a little sigh of relief when his father calls to him. “Yosuke?”</p><p>Shoulders slumped in anticipation of whatever he’s about to be told, he dutifully shuffles into the living room.</p><p>“Yes?”</p><p>His father is seated at the table, knees folded neatly underneath him as he works at his laptop. He doesn’t look up when he speaks again, and his eyes are obscured behind glasses that reflect the bright screen.</p><p>“You shouldn’t be out so late.”</p><p>Yosuke opens his mouth to bullshit some explanation, then decides that’s too much hassle and just answers. “I’m sorry.”</p><p>His father nods once. “Can you take a shift from three to ten tomorrow?”</p><p><em>Can </em>he? Yes. Does that sound absolutely exhausting after the night he’s had? Yes.</p><p>Not for the first time, he fights the urge to throw his frustration in his father's face. What if he wanted to join a school club? Or take up a hobby? Or just spend some time with his friends? Or get a job somewhere else, anywhere else? The few times he's tried to bring any of this up, however, his parents point out that he's never committed himself to any hobby and that he earns good spending money--nothing he does for the store goes uncompensated. In fact, isn't he lucky to have a built-in job?</p><p>Yosuke sighs and runs a hand through his hair. It's somewhat grungy from his time in Kanji's cognitive bathhouse, a strange physical reminder of what he actually does with his free time in some kind of metaverse. </p><p>“Yeah, I can swing that.”</p><p>“Thank you.”</p><p>He turns on his heel and heads upstairs to his room without saying goodnight. What would his parents say if he told them anything about the TV world or the fact that he was closer to solving the Inaba mysteries than the police? He snorts. They’d probably just order him to stop using Junes as his point of access for the shadow realm.</p><p>Later that night, after a hasty dinner and a long shower, he lies awake in his futon. This is nothing unusual these days. His brain is great at showing him images of Saki-senpai’s body, his shadow-self laughing in his face, or something stupid he did in a fight that almost injured his teammates or cost them the day. Tonight, however, he’s haunted by Shadow Kanji’s taunting voice.</p><p>
  <em>“You three should be boyfriends!”</em>
</p><p>He punches his pillow into a new shape and rolls onto his side. His back and chest are tight, and his breath is coming short. He tries closing his eyes and breathing slowly in through his nose and out through his mouth.</p><p>What does Kanji’s shadow know anyhow? Whatever that guy brought up was for Kanji to accept and deal with, not Yosuke! If Yosuke were . . . if Yosuke felt . . . <em>stuff</em>, then his shadow would have mentioned it too. Instead he’d talked about how bored and lonely he was, how much he wanted to be someone special even though he also knew he was too much of a dumpster fire for that.</p><p>None of this comforts him. It’s not enough to know that he isn’t gay, he needs other people to know too. And sure, Kanji was probably projecting his own gay feelings onto Yosuke and Souji's closeness, but this fact doesn’t sate the need Yosuke suddenly has to prove himself.</p><p>First, to test himself, just to make sure. He’s not gay, so he can’t be turned on by thinking about kissing a guy, right? He pictures a faceless, shirtless man with bulging muscles and tight jeans. That’s what a sexy man is, right? Yuck. No, he doesn’t want to kiss that person! He’s not interested at all! His shoulders relax a fraction. He’s definitely straight then!</p><p>But that’s just one type of guy, and he doesn’t know anyone who actually looks like that. In a reckless fit of pique, Yosuke decides that he has to test himself with the charge that’s been laid at his door. He forces himself to imagine kissing Souji.</p><p>Souji is objectively handsome, even Yosuke can admit that. In fact, he’s said it to his best friend a few times. You know, like a hype man! And when Souji has returned the compliment, that’s made him feel good because it’s something he doesn’t really hear anywhere else; a guy needs his bros to keep his self-esteem up, right? But Souji isn’t buff like the man Yosuke just invented, though he’s not skinny like Yosuke either. Yosuke has particularly admired his broader shoulders before. But like, from envy, because he wishes he could have them. And Souji somehow manages to pull off silver hair (he says it’s not dyed, but how can that be true?) cut in a bowl shape. Maybe because it just looks soft? That’s another thing Yosuke’s jealous of, because his hair is starting to get a bit fried from all the bleach and straightening. Besides all this, Yosuke has to say that he has caught himself starting at Souji’s hands before, they seem like nice hands with long, elegant fingers. Souji always looks so cool wielding his two-handed sword in their fights with shadows. Yosuke can always appreciate a good set of hands; does that mean he has a complex about his own?</p><p>He has a starting point for envisioning what it would be like to touch Souji too. Just last week, terrified of losing yet another person to the shadow world and also tormented by Saki’s death, Yosuke had broken down in front of his partner. The other boy had heard him out and then, when Yosuke’s tears overwhelmed him, reached out to hug him gently around the middle. Yosuke had said something stupid like “that’s for girls, dumbass,” but he had accepted the comfort and sobbed into Souji’s shoulder for a while all the same. He’d probably gotten snot all over Souji's shirt, that’s embarrassing to think about. Anyway, sure, there wasn’t anything romantic about such an embrace, but it did kind of give him a sense of how the two of them fit together, which was more than he had for his initial torso-man idea.</p><p>
  <em>It’s weird to use that though . . . this is weird. I’m being weird. Good, that’s a good reaction to have. That probably means I’m straight. But I’ll just try, just to make sure . . .</em>
</p><p>Yosuke gets as far as imagining putting his hands on Souji’s broad shoulders while Souji’s much nicer fingers grasp his waist, and leaning in close enough to feel the soft brush of Souji’s hair on his own forehead, when it fully hits him what he’s doing and he sits up bolt upright in a cold sweat.</p><p>No. This is wrong. He can’t do this. This is Souji, the closest friend he’s ever had. His partner. The person who’s seen the worst of him in the shadow world and still accepted him. What he’s doing now amounts to a betrayal of Souji’s trust and a corruption of their friendship. It’s weird, and like, violating to fantasize . . . no, not fantasize, that’s a strong word. To <em>think</em> about kissing him, even as a personal test.</p><p>And the jolt in his stomach just now, that’s just about him never having kissed another person before and, quite frankly, being touch-starved. Souji’s the only person he touches, which of course leads to him associating touch with Souji. It’s way past time a guy like him should have had his first girlfriend, and it’s suddenly imperative that he fixes this.</p><p>He crawls out of his futon on shaking limbs, stumbling over to his computer in the corner and booting it up. As soon as it loads, he’s on the internet and searching for dating advice.</p><p>“How to get a girlfriend.” No, that’s all generic stuff he’s read before, maybe he needs to be more specific.</p><p>“How to get a high school girlfriend.” OH SHIT, yikes, yikes, yikes, yikes! Abort, abort! God, why are older guys such creeps??</p><p>“How to get a girlfriend in high school.” Okay, this is a bit better. Still a few icky dudes lurking around, but mostly advice for high schoolers trying to date other high schoolers. Good. Okay. There’s guidance about asking a girl out or finding out what kinds of music and flowers she likes so you can get her good gifts, but Yosuke’s not even at that stage yet. He doesn’t know any girls he wants to ask out, just a few he thinks are cute or pretty. It’s more just the idea of a girlfriend that he’s interested in . . .</p><p>He slumps back in his chair. When he puts it like that, it doesn’t sound so good. If he were going to date someone, he wouldn’t want her to like just “the idea” of being with any guy, right? He’d want to be special to her. Or was that right? Would it really matter if they liked you in particular if you could kiss them and . . . other stuff . . . ?</p><p>Still slightly torn, he clicks on a link about going out on dates as a high schooler.</p><p>“Sometimes it’s nice to get a bit further away from home and your friends and family, to feel like you can talk and get to know each other in a bit more privacy! While you can’t get a driver’s license until you’re eighteen, you can get a motorcycle license at sixteen. Though remember that you wouldn’t be able to share a bike, so both of you would need a license.”</p><p>Yosuke’s mind shows him two competing images at the same time. One is him on a motorcycle with a knockout girl pressed close against his back so that he can feel her whole body, and the other is a memory of when he was rescued from a trashcan by Souji and then offered him an illegal ride on the back of his bike to school. It had been impossible for Souji not to sit right up against him in that moment, although he hadn’t thought much about it in at the time. He indulges in the first vision while repressing the second one.</p><p>Scanning through photos of girls clinging to guys in leather on motorcycles is pretty exciting. And then there are some websites about how easy it is to “pick up chicks” when you have a bike, how much they dig the “bad boy” vibe. Maybe he could get a motorcycle and ride to the nearby Okina City where people didn’t know him, and then . . .</p><p>A quick search informs him that motorcycles are, predictably, expensive. But he could get a secondhand scooter with the money he earns from working for his father at Junes! A scooter is pretty close to a motorcycle, right?</p><p>Grinning like a fool, Yosuke switches off his computer and heads back to bed. The day’s work catches up to him finally, and his eyelids droop. Now that he’s identified his problem (affection-starved, not gay) and come up with a solution (“operation up-close-and-personal”!), he’s well on his way to fixing it! He should tell Souji at school tomorrow. Hell, he should get Souji in on this plan too! That way they can both have girlfriends, so neither of them will feel left out and no one will ever talk about them potentially liking each other again!</p><p>He drifts into uncomfortable dreams where bathhouse steam mixes with fog and the distant roar of unseen motorcycles prompts him into a panicked run.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Hiiiiiiii :) I'm sure this fic or some version of it has been written so many times already, but writing it is helping me cope with Yosuke's abrupt switch in behavior after meeting Kanji's shadow (and I've gotten far enough in the game now that he seems to be kinda growing past it, which I appreciate!). And it's also helping me cope with my past repressed teen self ahaha. I'm sorry if my characterizations are off; I haven't finished the game, so writing and posting right now is probably a mistake, but I also am enjoying writing again, so I decided to just go for it ahah.</p><p>Thanks for reading!! I really appreciate all comments and kudos. Also, this chapter was beta'd/encouraged by my sibling.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>In which Yosuke tries to confirm for himself and others that he's 100% straight, and for some reason his best friend Souji seems put off by that. Weird, right?</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Yosuke tries to get Souji in on his plan the next day after school, the words don’t come out quite right.</p><p>“Hey, guess what I just heard?” His voice sounds overloud even to his own ears, but once he starts speaking, it all tumbles out in a rush. “When they’re sitting in back of you, it’s like a squeeze play!”</p><p>There’s so much wrong with what he’s saying, and he knows it. First off, he didn’t ‘hear’ anything, he read it on an internet forum at some weird hour of the morning, but now that he’s turned around in his desk and facing Souji, he doesn’t want to admit that. Secondly, the rest of what he said is plain incomprehensible.</p><p>Souji doesn’t seem to mind though. He brushes his silver hair out of his eyes and smiles bemusedly over at Yosuke. Looking into his best friend’s face, Yosuke sees the dark circles under his eyes, a sign of how he’s worn himself down trying to prevent the Inaba killer from striking again. Well, hopefully having a plan to a get a girlfriend will cheer him up!</p><p>“Putting together a baseball team?” Souji asks, one corner of his mouth twitching up. That’s kind of cute, girls will love that. He’ll be a natural at this once they have their motorcycles.</p><p>Yosuke rolls his eyes in mock frustration. “C’mon man, you know what I mean.”</p><p>Souji shakes his head. God, he’s going to force Yosuke to say it. Yosuke looks quickly in both directions to make sure no one is paying attention to him and then leans in to whisper, “I’m talking about how, when a girl is sitting behind you on a motorcycle, <em>they</em> press right up against your back.”</p><p>Maybe it’s his imagination, but Souji’s smile seems to dim just a little. “What does?”</p><p>“Man, you’re a lot thicker than I thought.” Yosuke knows he sounds whiny, but it bothers him that Souji is not immediately enthusiastic about this. Doesn’t he want to feel a girl’s . . . you know? Or maybe he’s just too polite to say it. That thought embarrasses Yosuke, like he’s made a fool of himself by being crass in front of Souji again.</p><p>“A-anyway,” he continues, fighting the sudden heat in his face and looking away from his best friend, out the window and across the flood plain that’s sparkling in the sun. “I think motorcycles are the hot new thing for guys now. Girls like guys who spend time outdoors, right?”</p><p>Oh shit, what is he even saying? He must sound so dumb. To cover how flustered he suddenly is, he rifles in his bag and pulls out the motorcycle license application forms he picked up from the Inaba Transportation Bureau this morning before school.  He shoots his best cheerful wink over at Souji and plops the papers his desk. “So, I got you this. Wanna get your license with me, partner?”</p><p>Was the ‘partner’ laying it on too thick? Yosuke added it in without thinking. Souji looks between him and the papers, a slight frown between his eyebrows. That tiny bit of implied judgment just embarrasses Yosuke further.</p><p>“Do you . . . have a motorcycle?” Souji finally asks, turning over the first page of the application and giving the contents a cursory glance.</p><p>“W-well, I can’t afford anything bigger than a scooter on my budget, but at least that’ll let us get to new places! Don’t you think we deserve that much, seeing as how we’re investigating the case?”</p><p>That brings the smile back to Souji’s face for some reason. He flips another page. “Yeah, that could be nice.”</p><p>Yosuke grins in relief. “Yeah, right?”</p><p>At that exact moment, the door to their classroom slides open, and Kanji stomps in, uniform jacket hanging from his shoulders to show off his definitely not-school-approved skull t-shirt. On the one hand, Yosuke is relieved to see him walking about so quickly after his stint in the shadow world, but on the other, this is turning out to be a strangely delicate moment with his best friend, and now the guy who indirectly prompted Yosuke to hatch this plan is barging in.</p><p>“’Sup senpai!” He calls, making a beeline straight for them. “Hey, about the school camping trip . . .” he trails off when he catches sight of Yosuke, then his eyes land on the forms between them. “Oh, you guys busy right now?”</p><p>“Kinda,” Yosuke answers curtly. And then, because Kanji reminds him of the real reason he’s so intent on this right now, he decides to brag. “We’re talking about motorcycles.”</p><p>“Motorcycles?” Kanji repeats in confusion, and then his eyes light up. “You gonna go stomp a gang? If you’re bringing a war, I’ll help!”</p><p>He makes an aggressive gesture with his fists. The other second years who haven’t left yet exchange glances with each other and begin whispering. Alarmed, Yosuke reaches to pull Kanji’s hands down.</p><p>“No, we’re not ‘bringing a war’! What does that mean, anyway? We’re just talking about getting motorcycle licenses!”</p><p>Even as he says it, he realizes his mistake. Kanji had chased off the biker gangs from the area. He must know a thing or two about bikes. Maybe he’ll want to help them . . . maybe he’ll want to join in on the plan . . . but this was meant to be something for him and Souji to share as partners . . . Kanji doesn’t even like girls!</p><p>As if reading his mind, Kanji blurts, “Oh, licenses? You guys don’t have yours?”</p><p>Yosuke’s stomach sinks. “Wait, don’t tell me you already—”</p><p>Kanji shrugs. “Oh, nah. I’m still fifteen and all.”</p><p>“Then why’d you say it like that?” Yosuke snaps. Souji shoots him a warning look, which makes his face go all hot with embarrassment again. He leans back in his chair and crosses his arms over his chest, all prepared to sulk, when a thought occurs to him. “Wait, if you don’t have a motorcycle, how’d you chase off all those gangs?”</p><p>“Eh, a bike’s all I need for that,” Kanji answers nonchalantly.</p><p>That puts Yosuke and Souji on the same page again. They raise their eyebrows at each other in shock. Souji is fighting a smile once more. Yeah, the ladies will definitely fawn all over that face. Hopefully there will be plenty of girls in Okina so the two of them won’t have to compete over them, because Yosuke’s abruptly aware that he probably can’t hold a candle to Souji’s charm. He banishes those unsportsmanlike thoughts from his brain and clears his throat.</p><p>“In any case, we can’t let you in on our ‘up close and personal’ plan,” he informs Kanji in his best stern senpai voice.</p><p>Kanji takes a step back, almost knocking into the desk behind him. “‘Up close and personal’?” he booms, making Yosuke wince. “What’s that mean?!”</p><p>“Keep it down!” Yosuke hisses between his teeth. “Like I was telling Souji, what a guy needs nowadays to be a big man is first, a motorcycle, and then . . .” he lets that hang, not sure if he should finish the sentence with his classmates eyeing Kanji and muttering again.</p><p>“And then?” Kanji prompts, refusing to let Yosuke run away.</p><p>So, Yosuke goes for it. “A girlfriend,” he finishes with a cheeky wink he’s too deflated to really feel.</p><p>“Tell me more,” Souji surprises him by saying, leaning his hand on his cheek and watching Yosuke carefully. Yosuke isn’t sure what his tone is, but he decides that it must be curiosity, which encourages him that he might actually be able to get somewhere.</p><p>“Now that’s my partner!” he plunges ahead with another wink. “Alright then, here’s what—”</p><p>“Oh!” Kanji interrupts, and Yosuke can almost see the lightbulb flickering above his head. “You guys gonna get licensed for the big stuff? I mean, I know I came in late here, but if you’re talking about taking a girl on a bike, you gotta be seating two, man. That ain’t allowed on a scooter.”</p><p>Oh. “I forgot about that,” Yosuke admits, his shoulders sagging. That’s right, one of his websites had mentioned that. But he rouses himself quickly. “Shut up! This’ll work, dammit! As long as we have a motorcycle of some kind, the girls will come running! That’s all the advantage we need.”</p><p>He leans over to Souji conspiratorially.</p><p>“Now, listen carefully. The reason we don’t have girlfriends because we’re stuck here in this town, waiting to meet someone! This place is so tiny, it’s no wonder we can’t find one. It doesn’t matter if it’s only a scooter,” he continues with a glance up at Kanji. “Some kind of motorcycle is just the ticket for us to get some chicks! Then, later on, we can get a bigger motorcycle . . . and that’s when the ‘up close and personal’ plan really starts!”</p><p>Yosuke keeps his cheery grin plastered on his face and he searches Souji’s for some kind of reaction. His mouth is quirked upward on one side again for some reason. Yosuke’s about to ask why, when Kanji thoughtfully mutters, “Up close and personal . . .” like he’s trying to solve the puzzle.</p><p>Yosuke decides to let him take his time with it. Sitting back again, he reminds Souji, “Plus, you and me have more of a city boy thing going on. If we’re serious about this, we’ve gotta expand our horizons to a bigger town.”</p><p>“I dunno,” Souji says, but he’s still smiling, which Yosuke takes as a good sign. “I feel like I’ve been pretty countrified by this point.”</p><p>“Psh!” Yosuke waves that idea off. “We gotta take the initiative! There’s no time to wait for a train that only leaves every so often each day! We’ll roar up on our motorcycles like the badasses we are, and when the chicks come up, we’ll play it cool . . .” He can really envision it now that Souji is expressing interest. The two of them in sunglasses, leaning against their bikes and looking cool and disinterested; girls in short-shorts and tight tops wandering over . . . a phrase he read online last night pops back into his brain. “The pheromones dripping off of us will bring them around in no time!”</p><p>He doesn’t have time to wonder what it means that Souji’s eyebrows have disappeared into his bangs before Kanji interjects again. “F-feral . . . zone . . .??”</p><p>Yosuke smacks his forehead with a little more force than he originally intended. Ow. “No, we’re not going to a cat house!” he groans, half in frustration and half in pain. “I’m talking about <em>pheromones</em>!”</p><p>Someone behind him suppresses a giggle. Souji has his hand pressed over his mouth too. Shit, now it’s Yosuke who’s talking too loudly. He lowers his volume, his face burning again, and hurries to explain. “My research shows that a motorcycle is the number one surefire way to increase a man’s pheromones.” Which he had googled this morning because Shadow Kanji’s taunts were still bugging him, but neither Kanji nor Souji needed to know that.</p><p>“Ohhh,” Kanji says, his own cheeks turning pink as it finally sinks in. “Phero-moans . . .”</p><p>Yosuke does not want to think about what Kanji’s associations with that word might be. If he’s not careful, Kanji is going to make this perfectly normal bro thing into something . . . weird. “Dude . . . that’s how a perv would react.”</p><p>He doesn’t mean to hurt Kanji, it’s just that his mere presence is reminding Yosuke of the weird experiment he tried last night and the fact that if he and Souji don’t get girlfriends soon and keep hanging out with Kanji then people might start to think . . . to think . . .</p><p>But, perhaps understandably, Kanji doesn’t take his words well. “What did you say!” The redness spreads from his face to his neck and he scowls down at Yosuke. “Fine! Then, I’m in too! Get ready for Kanji Tatsumi to show his manhood to these chicks.”</p><p>“I already told you, you can’t!” Yosuke can hear his voice squeaking a bit. Oh shit, this is the complete opposite of what he wanted. “Anyway, don’t tell anyone about this, got it?”</p><p>It’s probably too late, considering how loud they’re being, but maybe if they quiet down now, people will lose interest. But he doesn’t want to look like he’s doing something he’s embarrassed about, so he rushes to explain, “If other guys try to copy us, it’ll end up diluting our pheromones!” He starts to turn towards Souji, “So, partner, make sure to talk to your uncle about getting . . . your license . . . okay?”</p><p>He loses steam part way through because the slight frown has returned to Souji’s face. What’s with him? He’d seemed into it a minute before . . .</p><p>“Got it!” Kanji says with a nod.</p><p>“Not you!” Yosuke snaps, very annoyed now. None of this is going how it was supposed to. What a complete mess! “I don’t even know your uncle!”</p><p>“I’ll think about it,” Souji says, picking up the manual and carefully stowing it in his bag, effectively ending the fight before it can properly start. Yosuke watches his hands for a brief moment—the way his long fingers refasten the clasps—and then he has to look somewhere else. Several different guilts compete for his attention; guilt over insulting Kanji, guilt over making Souji uncomfortable for some reason, and guilt over thinking about Souji’s hands around him . . . no. Stop. Focus on something else.</p><p>“I gotta head home to check on Nanako,” Souji continues, suddenly all business. “But maybe tomorrow we can all go back to the TV world to get your glasses settled, Kanji?”</p><p>“Glasses? Oh, right! You were all wearing them when you . . . uh, when I . . . when you saved me.”</p><p>Whatever annoyance Yosuke was feeling for Kanji quickly disperses. Poor guy. Who knows how many people saw him on the Midnight Channel, what they must think of him now? And that’s nothing compared to the fact that he almost died . . .</p><p>“Yeah,” he says in a strained voice, crossing his hands over his chest to compensate for how exposed he’s feeling right now. “Teddie gives them to us so we can see through the fog. He’ll make you a pair.”</p><p>“Oh really!” Kanji grins. “You mean, you want me on the team?”</p><p>Souji stands up and pats Kanji on the shoulder. “Of course! If you want to be that is. But we could use every persona-user and you were a target too. We have to get to the bottom of this.”</p><p>Something sour curdles in Yosuke’s gut. He thinks it might be jealousy, as ridiculous and childish as that is. He feels it quite easily around Souji. Sometimes he’s jealous <em>of </em>his best friend; his looks, how easily he seems to fit into Inaba when it was so hard for Yosuke to adjust, the fact that he got the mysterious persona powers first without even having to confront his own shadow. But sometimes he’s jealous of anyone else Souji pays special attention or who might ‘replace’ him as Souji’s closest friend. Chie was another candidate, with her tomboy demeaner and her infectious energy; but Yosuke had always reassured himself with the knowledge that he was Souji’s closest guy friend, and there were some things girls could never understand. Kanji, however . . . well, whatever.</p><p>Yosuke already knows he’s a desperately lonely mess and confronted his shadow about it. That’s old news.</p><p>He flips his hair out of his face stands up. “I’ll walk as far as Junes with you, dad gave me a shift.”</p><p>Souji nods and smiles, which appeases Yosuke’s fickle jealousy somewhat. God, what is he? Twelve?</p><p>By the shoe lockers, Souji turns to Yosuke and murmurs, “A shift the day after jumping into the TV world is a lot of work.”</p><p>Yosuke is inclined to agree and he kind of likes that Souji worries over him, but he also doesn’t quite feel like he deserves it. So, he shrugs and finishes tying on his sneakers. “So’s babysitting, even if Nanako-chan is the easiest kid in the world to look after!”</p><p>“Too easy,” Souji agrees, wrapping a scarf around his neck. The fog cooled off the weather a bit last night, even though it’s getting closer to summer. “I come home from basketball practice sometimes to find she’s done the shopping. I don’t think I shopped for my family until I was at least ten or eleven.”</p><p>“Dude, that’s still a little young,” Yosuke says, holding out a hand for Souji to pull him up. His partner obliges without hesitation. Yosuke tries not to think about timing the contact so that their fingers don’t linger. Even thinking about it is weird. So, he won’t. “Like, you should be sneaking off the arcade with your friends at that age, not managing your family’s meals on your own!”</p><p>Souji makes a noncommittal noise. “Not like, shop-shopped. Just, you know, pulling my weight.”</p><p>They set out into the spring sunshine, through the school gates and towards the flood plain. Yosuke ponders for a moment what the difference between “shop-shopping” and regular shopping is. He can’t quite figure that one out, but he does know a thing or two about pulling his weight for his family. That’s why it had touched him so deeply when Saki-senpai had told him, “Parents are parents. You’re you.” If only Souji could have a senpai to help him see how much he was taking on . . . how much Yosuke had forced him to take on, to be honest. Once again, he feels a slight twinge of remorse for foisting the leader role of their investigation team on Souji. If only he were stronger . . . well, he’d just have to put all his effort into being the best right-hand man and advisor ever!</p><p>And what better way to get a guy to relax than to help him get a girlfriend!</p><p>He puts a hand on Souji’s shoulder to get him to stop for a second. “Hey, partner. I’m really serious about the motorcycles.” When Souji raises an eyebrow at him, he rushes on. “Just think about all the places we could go! Not just to Okina City, but all over the countryside. You gotta see everything the country has to offer before you move back to Tokyo next year, right?”</p><p>He smiles widely to cover up how those last words stick in his throat. More and more he finds himself counting the days until Souji has to leave again and getting depressed. Sure, he’ll have more friends now than before the other boy arrived, but there’s a reason Souji is his partner.</p><p>Maybe it’s a low blow because he can see Souji’s mouth tighten. It relieves Yosuke that Souji probably doesn’t want to leave either. Well, then Yosuke just has to get him a country girlfriend to make sure he keeps coming back for more than just family holidays with his uncle and cousin.</p><p>“C’mon, partner, let’s have fun!” Yosuke urges with a wink. “We’ve earned it!”</p><p>Souji lets out a resigned sigh, but he’s smiling. “Alright. I’ll talk to Dojima tonight.”</p><p>Yosuke squeezes his shoulder once before letting go. “Sweet! Start thinking about where we should go! Though Okina City is definitely first on the list.”</p><p>“If you promise to let me stop in the cat café after we ‘pick up chicks’ or whatever,” Souji laughs, punching him lightly on the shoulder. “I’m going to get shot down so fast, I’ll need cats to cheer me up.”</p><p>“You won’t, you’re so cool!” Yosuke scoffs, ruffling his hair. He does it on impulse, and it’s the first time he’s touched Souji this way. His silver hair is actually quite soft, which would be unusual if it were natural. He <em>must </em>dye it. Souji squawks and moves out of the way with a playful shove. Yes, good. He didn’t overstep a boundary then; still bro-y.</p><p>“So, we’ll attract hot babes with our cool motorcycles and then we’ll take them to the cat café to show them our softer sides?”</p><p>“Okay, but not too soft, alright? Ladies like bad boys.”</p><p>“If you say so.”</p><p>They start walking again, Yosuke elated that Souji is finally in on his plan. They lapse into comfortable silence while he indulges in fantasies of a sunny day in Okina and all the pretty girls they’ll meet . . .</p><p>“Hey, Yosuke?”</p><p>“Hmm?”</p><p>They’re almost to the edge of town now. He can see the behemoth bulk of Junes looming over the smaller businesses and homes.</p><p>Souji stops walking again, his expression abruptly serious. “Is everything alright with you?”</p><p>“What?” Yosuke crosses his arms and forces a wink. “Why wouldn’t things be alright? I mean, I told you when they weren’t.”</p><p>He still gets embarrassed remembering how long he cried in Souji’s arms over Saki-senpai’s death and the stress of the murders just week ago. But at the same time, that had been a good release of his pent-up emotions too. He knows it helped him give it his all in the fight to save Kanji, and it solidified his trust in his partner even further. He knows he can talk to Souji if he has problems; he just doesn’t want to have problems anymore.</p><p>“Ah, yeah. That’s true. But I actually meant, is everything okay between you and Kanji?”</p><p>Yosuke takes a step back. Souji doesn’t ever miss a beat, does he? “Yeah! I mean, you know, it’s just, I’ve never known a dude who, um, liked guys before.”</p><p>Something shutters in Souji’s face. Yosuke’s heart sinks. He gets the feeling that he’s somehow disappointing his partner, the one person who had seen his shadow and his lowest moments and accepted him anyway. That realization stings pretty badly—he didn’t know he could sink any lower or be any more of a burden than he already was.</p><p>“B-but Kanji is cool! I mean, he’s the biggest badass in town!” He babbles, desperately trying to save this situation. “And it . . . it takes a lot of strength to accept a shadow. So, I gotta admire him, and do my best to be a good senpai.”</p><p>He isn’t sure of half of what he’s saying, it all comes out as word soup. But Souji nods anyway.</p><p>“Yeah, I really admire his strength too.” He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “Sorry, I just, wanted to check. We haven’t, um, talked about the bathhouse at all, and I know you were uncomfortable—”</p><p>Yosuke abruptly wants out of this conversation, so he interrupts. “I mean, there’s not much to say right? It’s over now. No use rehashing the past!”</p><p>Souji opens his mouth, apparently thinks better of whatever he was about to say, and then shrugs. “I guess that’s true.”</p><p>Relief and alarm mingle in Yosuke’s head. He doesn’t want to talk about the bathhouse anymore, but he’s also worried about Souji clamming up. Yeah, they’re boys so they’re not supposed to talk so much about their feelings, but he gets incredibly nervous at the thought that Souji might hold something back from him because that hasn’t been their relationship previously. Can Souji sense that Yosuke questioned himself after the bathhouse? Is Souji worried he’s going to try something weird? Oh god, can he prove that he won’t? This is why they need girlfriends, dammit! Then these questions can’t pop up, and he’ll be perfectly assured of his normalness.</p><p>The thought of Souji with a girl though . . . that doesn’t make him feel too good either. The jealous ache comes up again, even if he pictures an equally hot and sweet girl on his own arm. Would he still be the first person Souji told stuff to? Would Souji still be there for him when he needed it? What would happen to their friendship?</p><p>
  <em>That’s just part of growing up though, right? And there’s some things you can’t talk about with a girl . . . it’ll be fine. No! It’ll be great!</em>
</p><p>They’re quiet until they reach Junes, Souji lost in whatever is troubling him, and Yosuke hunching in on himself and hatching schemes to try to keep Souji from questioning his sexuality. He’s about to wave goodbye at the double doors to the department store when he catches Souji pulling a face at something over his shoulder. He turns to see Officer Adachi on the other side of the glass, awkwardly standing by the cart return and fiddling with something on his phone. His poorly cut hair sticks up in all directions and his suit looks rumpled like he’s been sleeping in it. The customers are giving him a wide berth as they put their carts back.</p><p> “That guy is always dicking around, huh?” Yosuke doesn’t bother to keep the heat out of his voice, even though the man is on Souji’s uncle’s investigation team. “Maybe if he spent more time on his job, the police would have better leads on the killer!”</p><p>“Yeah . . .” Souji says, apparently still unsettled. Yosuke raises an eyebrow at him, and he shakes his head like he’s trying to clear it. “Does he ever just kind of creep you out? Like, I feel really weird around him. I don’t like it when he comes home with uncle after work, and I really don’t like it if he talks to Nanako. He just, like, seems off.”</p><p>“I get it.” Without thinking, Yosuke reaches out to give Souji’s shoulder a comforting squeeze.</p><p>“I’ve seen him hanging around the gas station a couple nights,” Souji blurts, averting his eyes from Adachi. “Like, when I come out to meet you by the vending machines. I talked to him once and he said he was working, but I don’t know. There wasn’t anyone else around, and he was just standing there.”</p><p>“Maybe he’s trying to, uh, meet people? Like a sting operation?”</p><p>“Who knows,” Souji mumbles. Yosuke pats his back awkwardly, which earns him a quick smile. “Anyway, let’s talk about something else. I know you have to go soon, but I remembered while we were talking that Kou and Daisuke wanted to hang out with both of us sometime. I think they’d like to get to know you better.”</p><p>“Really?” Yosuke knows he sounds too eager, but he’s flattered that the cool jocks who adopted Souji might be interested in befriending him too. “Yeah, sure! I’m down!”</p><p>“Great! They’re a great pair, I think you’ll like them.” There’s no other way to put it; he smiles <em>significantly</em> before patting Yosuke’s arm and pulling away. But what was he trying to communicate?</p><p>Eh, maybe it’s all just in Yosuke’s head because he’s feeling weird today. He tends to overthink things, he should probably work on that. Besides, he’s running on very little sleep and exhausted from saving Kanji.</p><p>“Uh, say hi to Nanako-chan for me!” He calls after Souji as the other boy starts off down the street towards his house. His friend raises a hand in response, and then there’s nothing left for Yosuke to do but brace his shoulders and get to work, shooting an annoyed glare at Adachi as he crosses the atrium.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Hi again! Thanks again for reading, I really appreciate it!</p><p>I lifted the motorcycle dialogue in the first half of this from the game and just wrote around it lol. I added some lines for Souji (whose characterization here is more serious than I see in the game hmm; that's my bad!) and changed the tone of a few things. </p><p>Full disclosure, I just got to the part of the game where Morooka dies and Teddie comes out of the TV. So my characterizations may be off, this is just based on my impressions so far! Once again, I'm just kind of writing for fun and to make sense of this story for myself, though I try to be as accurate to my impressions as I can be! I haven't been this excited by a story in a while, I'm really liking it so far!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>In which Yosuke's well-laid plans to prove his and Souji's straightness go horrible awry.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is the Okina Station motorcycle scene. I cut out the fat-shaming because I just don't want to deal with that, and I kind of approximated the dialogue rather than kept it completely.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Operation up close and personal” is turning out to be a bit of a bust.</p><p>For starters, it’s a warmer day than Yosuke anticipated. The heat of the sun is bouncing off the black asphalt and the shiny chrome of his bike, making it extremely uncomfortable to lounge around in the parking lot. His school uniform shirt sticks to the back of his neck and clings unpleasantly to his sides. He opens his mouth at one point to joke to Souji about how all this sweating is probably increasing the range of their pheromones, but then he remembers Kanji’s “phero-moans” comment and cringes internally. Better not.</p><p>Worst of all, absolutely no girls are taking the bait. Sure, they can’t have been here for more than fifteen or twenty minutes, but the people walking in and out of Okina station aren’t sparing any glances for them, and Yosuke is beginning to worry they look like fools.</p><p>
  <em>This was stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid! You know by now that nothing ever works like it does in the movies or stupid internet stories. Why do you even try?</em>
</p><p>He catches himself with his arms crossed defensively over his chest and tries to find something else to do with them that looks more inviting and natural. Maybe he should put a hand on his bike, all casual-like? But the metal frame sears his fingers as soon as he touches it.</p><p>“You okay?” Souji asks as Yosuke yelps.</p><p>“Yeah, just . . . it’s hot, you know?” he mumbles, embarrassed.</p><p>Does Souji look bored, or are his eyelids drooping because of this damn heat?</p><p>The shitty thing is that the lead-up to enacting this plan had been pretty fun. Souji’s uncle Dojima had been surprisingly amenable, even offering his nephew his old scooter. Yosuke had wondered if perhaps Dojima was feeling slightly guilty for all the babysitting Souji did, or perhaps for the fact that Souji had to move to a country town like Inaba in the prime of his youth. Yosuke’s parents had just shrugged and told him the bike would have to come out of his savings, no guilt whatsoever. But with the go-ahead from both their families, they had set about studying for the written test together and passed it within a week. Licenses in hand, they’d spent the past two weeks taking turns puttering around Inaba on Dojima’s old bike as they got the hang of driving and Yosuke saved up for his own ride. Souji had seemed to enjoy himself, grinning from ear to ear as he sped around his uncle’s block to cheers from Yosuke and Nanako from the front garden. It had been nice to see him smile after all they’d been through in the TV world up to this point, to see him carefree and distracted from all his worries about who the killer might be and where he (she?) might strike next.</p><p>Now he was frowning and drooping awkwardly against his old scooter, sweaty hair clinging to his forehead. And Yosuke was the one who had dragged him out here.</p><p>“M-maybe,” Yosuke begins, hesitantly. “Uh, maybe we could go inside somewhere for a bit, get a drink or—”</p><p>“Senpai!”</p><p>Yosuke barely has time to register the spark of interest in Souji’s face before a huffing and puffing Kanji rolls up to them on his bicycle.</p><p>“Senpai!” he gasps again, then grins. “Haha, that was actually a breeze! It’s no sweat keeping up with a couple of guys still getting used to their scooters!”</p><p>Something about seeing Kanji here puts Yosuke’s hackles up. Maybe it’s the heat, maybe it’s that Kanji’s practical bike with a basket clashes with his muscle-tank and he still manages to look cool, or maybe it’s the fact that Souji’s looking a little relieved to see him . . . or maybe some combination of all three. Or, Yosuke realizes, eyes narrowing, it’s that fact that Kanji—who isn’t interested in girls <em>at all</em>—wants in on their plan to find girlfriends. Does he really want to hang out with them that badly? Why does he have to crush their vibe?</p><p><em>Or maybe</em>, a sly voice whispers in Yosuke’s mind, <em>he just wants to make sure you don’t get girlfriends. Maybe he likes us? </em>He eyes the way Kanji beams at Souji. <em>Or just one of us. </em></p><p>Kanji had said he wasn’t interested in Souji, but if you were going to be interested in dudes, Souji was almost certainly the dude to like. Funny, smart, more understanding than your average high schooler . . . and too polite to enforce a boundary sometimes.</p><p>Yosuke squares his shoulders. Well, as Souji’s best friend, he’ll have to make sure that no one prevents him from enjoying his high school years to the max just because they’re harboring secret, inappropriate feelings for him and jealously trying to take up all his time.</p><p>“You know,” Kanji is saying, setting his bike next to their scooters on its kickstand. “Every time I come here, it seems like there are even more people around.”</p><p>“Yeah!” Yosuke chimes in, winking at Souji with more enthusiasm than he feels. “If we keep hanging out here a girl is bound to talk to us!”</p><p>Souji smiles faintly, looking unconvinced. Yosuke wishes he knew what to say to keep his spirits up. With the intimidating Kanji standing nearby, however, their plan just levelled up into hard mode. People seem to be taking one look at their kouhai’s height and scowl and giving them all a wider berth.</p><p>
  <em>Shit.</em>
</p><p>But just as Yosuke is fighting despair and calculating when he can next take an afternoon off to try again, Kanji shoots them both a sheepish look. “Uh,” he starts, scratching his chin and appearing surprisingly shy for someone with five earrings and a skull on his tank top. “Actually, there’s, uh, a craft store nearby and since I’m here m-maybe . . . erm, what I mean is, I got an errand I gotta run! You guys get started without me, I’ll be back!”</p><p>And with that he’s charging off down the street. Yosuke and Souji watch his bleach-blonde head (still visible because he towers over the crowd) until it disappears around a corner.</p><p>Abruptly, Souji laughs. It’s a quiet sound, but still infectious. “W-what?” Yosuke asks, losing a battle against a smile himself.</p><p>Souji shakes his head, still chuckling. “N-nothing just . . . I dunno. Get started? What’s there to get started on? Maybe we should follow him instead.”</p><p>“Ah no!” Yosuke whines. “C’mon, we have to try now! I’m sure it won’t take too long. Look, I think a train just came in!” He tries winking again, but his heart really isn’t in it.</p><p>It seems to do the trick though. “Fine,” Souji sighs, slumping against his bike. “Let’s wait until Kanji comes back at least.”</p><p>Yosuke doesn’t like the resignation in his voice, but he accepts it. Souji will perk up once someone shows interest . . . which will be anytime now! Yosuke is sure!</p><p>Twenty minutes slide by in uncomfortable silence. Yosuke gets hopeful around minute forty, when a large group of high school girls appears on the escalator. But they’re too busy talking and laughing with each other to notice him and Souji lurking in the parking lot. After an hour, a middle-aged salary man walks up to them to chat about scooter specs. They answer as politely as they can, Yosuke fervently praying the whole time that the man won’t scare off any potential dates. At an hour-and-a-half they sit down on their bikes, both staring into the middle distance. Yosuke catches himself wondering what on earth could be taking Kanji so long.</p><p>As if summoned by his thoughts, their gangster kouhai chooses that moment to reappear, a bulging backpack slung over his shoulder.</p><p>“Sorry!” He calls as he waves at them from down the street. “They were having a sale and I just couldn’t . . . resist . . .” He takes in the whole picture of them, both drooping on their bikes, dripping in sweat and obviously still girl-less. Yosuke has never felt more like a loser, except perhaps when he faced his shadow.</p><p>“You didn’t get anyone?” Kanji asks, eyes widening.</p><p>Souji just shrugs and smiles sheepishly. “I must be doing something wrong.”</p><p>“Nah, you’re fine!” Yosuke surprises even himself with his vehemence. “Your motorcycle looks cool, and you don’t look so bad yourself!” <em>Unlike me. I’m probably the problem.</em></p><p>He’s uncomfortably aware of Kanji and Souji’s gazes on him. “Uh, thanks . . .” Souji mumbles, blushing a little. “Y-you also look good on your motorcycle.”</p><p>“Th-thanks.” Shit, he didn’t mean to force Souji to say something nice like that! What is going on?</p><p>The ensuing silence threatens to stretch into an uncomfortable eternity, but Kanji saves them by asking, “So, now what?”</p><p>“It’s getting late,” Souji replies, even though it can’t be five in the evening yet. “Maybe we should get back?”</p><p>Yosuke is about to sigh and throw in the towel when Kanji throws down his bag with excessive force. “Ah, hell no! Senpai, you can’t give up!”</p><p>
  <em>What the hell? What’s it to you? </em>
</p><p>Aloud, Yosuke says, “It’s been two hours, dude. Maybe today just isn’t our day.”</p><p>“Like hell it isn’t!” Kanji has that intense gleam in his eye, the one that must have struck fear into the hearts of all the bikers in Inaba. “Senpai! I challenge you both!” He points a finger threateningly between them. “The first one to get three girls’ numbers wins!”</p><p>“W-what?” Yosuke splutters. Souji’s mouth is hanging open slightly in surprise. It would be worth teasing him over if Yosuke also weren’t suddenly in hot water. “Dude, that’s not—”</p><p>“What?” Kanji sneers. “Easy? It’s totally easy! You just walk up to them and start talking, and then you don’t stop until they agree to be your friend!”</p><p>His voice cracks just a little on the last word. It’s then that Yosuke gets over his shock enough to realize that Kanji’s cheeks have gone extremely pink. “Are you . . . psyching yourself up?”</p><p>“We have one hour!” Kanji declares, refusing to answer his question.</p><p>Well, Yosuke doesn’t understand why Kanji is pushing himself to do this when he’s clearly as uncomfortable as they are if not more so, but maybe he has a point. They’ve been sitting here waiting for girls to come to them, but as men, shouldn’t they take the initiative? Yosuke crosses his arms over his chest and winks at Kanji.</p><p>“Deal! You both better be prepared to lose!”</p><p>He tries to grin over at Souji, but the other boy is looking completely at a loss. “Uh . . . partner? You in?”</p><p>Souji gives himself a little shake and shrugs. “I guess.”</p><p>“C’mon, where’s your fighting spirit?” Kanji demands, his voice still straining.</p><p>Without missing a beat, Souji poses like a crime-fighter in a children’s anime. “To victory!”</p><p>Kanji makes a rude gesture that Yosuke assumes is meant in a friendly way, then takes off down the street. Souji waves and goes jogging off the other way. Leaving Yosuke . . . exactly where he was.</p><p>Ignoring his suddenly queasy stomach, he decides to walk directly across the street to the station entrance. He just needs three numbers. No big deal. Like Kanji said, he should just go up to some girls, smile, and ask them.</p><p>
  <em>Why does the gay guy have the best dating advice? Even if he himself doesn’t want to take it?</em>
</p><p>The first approach is hard. There’s a pretty girl sitting on a bench near the turnstile. She’s alone, which makes her seem less intimidating initially. She looks like the cool type; long, straight hair, a short jean skirt, small square glasses on her nose. She’s got a book open on her lap. He perches next to her on the bench, opens his mouth . . . and promptly closes it. He shouldn’t bother her when she’s busy. He stands up and walks away, ears burning.</p><p>His second attempt doesn’t go any better. He tries a trio of girls in sparkly blouses, gossiping happily in a café in the station. He catches one of their eyes and waves. She waves back, but her eyebrows quirk and she immediately leans over to whisper in her friend’s ear. He turns on his heel and heads straight back onto the street.</p><p>Once outside, Yosuke mindlessly picks a direction and starts walking. He sees some girls his age by the movie theater and briefly considers approaching them, but before he can summon his courage, they head inside. He sighs, hunches his shoulders up, sticks his hands in his pockets, and keeps walking.</p><p>He’s just passing a bookshop when he sees a familiar person crouching in the alley between it and another store.</p><p>“Partner?”</p><p>His friend starts and turns to face him. The calico cat he’s been petting butts its head against his abruptly still fingers.</p><p>“Oh, hey!”</p><p>“You’re supposed to be picking up girls!” Yosuke accuses, even as he sidles into the alley and sits down beside his partner. Just being near Souji again relieves some of his tension, he realizes. He hadn’t noticed how anxious being alone just now had made him feel. <em>You’re already so dependent on him. What’re you going to do when he has to leave again . . .</em></p><p>“Er, I am!” Souji gently picks up the squirming cat and sets her in his lap. “See? Mission accomplished.”</p><p>Yosuke can’t help but huff out a little laugh. “Don’t be cute! Anyway, how can you tell that’s a girl?”</p><p>“Calicos are usually female, it’s genetics,” Souji answers, stroking the purring cat who seems perfectly content to settle down in his lap.</p><p>Yosuke sighs and slumps against the wall. “Is that something I was supposed to learn in science class?”</p><p>Souji’s smile tells him all he needs to know. He groans. “Can I borrow your notes again? I think I was spacing out during that lecture.” Dreaming about motorcycles, probably.</p><p>“Sure thing.”</p><p>“You’re a lifesaver, partner.”</p><p>They lapse into silence except for the purring of the cat, neither of them addressing the elephant in the alley with them. Finally, predictably, Souji ventures something. “So . . . no luck either, eh?”</p><p>Yosuke sighs and slides further down the wall. “I didn’t really see anyone I wanted to talk to,” he mutters. A feeble excuse, but Souji accepts it.</p><p>“Yeah, me neither.”</p><p>Yosuke wonders if that’s true, or if Souji is just humoring him. He thinks if Souji really tried, girls would be eating out of the palm of his hand. Even when he’s hiding in an alley, he’s being ridiculously cute, beaming down at the smug cat he’s found with that sweet smile of his. Part of Yosuke wants to confront him, to ask him why he’s pretending that he can’t get girls. To make Yosuke feel better? Does Souji really find him that pitiable?</p><p>“Do you think Kanji will beat us up if we fail?” Yosuke asks instead, trying to joke.</p><p>Souji shakes his head. “Nah, I think at worst he’ll just give us a stern talking to. His bark is worse than his bite.”</p><p>“Unless you’re a biker,” Yosuke chuckles.</p><p>He reaches out fingers for the cat to sniff and is gratified when she rubs her soft face against them. Souji pats her back and she closes her eyes in contentment.</p><p>“So,” Yosuke ventures after a few more minutes of cat love. “We’re getting up any second now, right?”</p><p>“I think Kanji would be more upset if we disturbed the cat than if we overstay our hour.”</p><p>Yosuke considers. “But then, we might need to rescue Kanji, actually. After all, picking up chicks isn’t really, uh, his thing. He’s afraid to even talk to girls, right? I mean, I feel kinda bad that we sort of forced him to like, force us . . .” he trails off, a potent cocktail of embarrassment and guilt flooding him. He’s been hard on Kanji lately, all because Kanji said . . . because he misinterpreted . . .</p><p>“You’re right.” With a gentle hand, Souji tips the calico out of his lap. “I’m sorry,” he calls after her as she stalks off into the alley with an indignant flick of her orange and black tail. “Can I at least get your number?”</p><p>Yosuke laughs and Souji grins at him. Then he stands up and immediately turns to offer Yosuke a hand up too. Sighing, Yosuke takes it and allows himself to be hauled to his feet. Maybe it’s because they were just talking about girls and Kanji, but Yosuke’s suddenly aware of just how close they are in this tight alley when they’re both standing, and how Souji is just the tiniest bit taller than him. This close, he can smell his friend’s sweat as well, and it’s not unpleasant—</p><p>“Let’s go save Kanji!” Yosuke winces as his voice cracks, and he drops Souji’s hand as if it’s burned him. Without waiting for a response, he spins around and marches back into the street.</p><p>They find Kanji sitting by their bikes, hunched over his backpack, peering at its contents. Yosuke catches a flash of something baby blue and paisley before Kanji spots them and hastily rezips his bag. He stands and tries to pose all cocky, fists clenched at his side.</p><p>“So, how’d you guys do?”</p><p>Souji makes an X with his arms.</p><p>“That’s not true,” Yosuke says, unsure why he’s rushing to Souji’s defense. Maybe he just doesn’t want Kanji to get any ideas. “He just, uh, got distracted. By a cat.”</p><p>Kanji’s face lights up with innocent joy, and Yosuke is suddenly wondering how anyone could ever find the other teen scary. “Oh, really? Where?”</p><p>Souji points back towards the bookshop. “But she’s wandered off.”</p><p>Kanji’s disappointment is palpable, and for a second Yosuke feels sorry for him. But then his kouhai rounds on him.</p><p>“And how about you? Did you get any numbers?”</p><p>“Er, I . . . no,” Yosuke is forced to admit. “You?” he shoots back.</p><p>Kanji shocks them by nodding. He fishes in his pocket and pulls out a card. “A lady came up to me and told me if I was looking for a good time, I should call her.”</p><p>Yosuke takes the proffered cardstock. It’s bright pink and reeks of perfume. “Errrr . . . that’s not . . . this doesn’t count, Kanji. This person’s a, uh, professional.”</p><p>Still, Yosuke’s a little jealous. Not even a call girl would approach him!</p><p>“In that case, I got nothing,”</p><p>Souji bursts out laughing, startling them both. “Wow, we’re all great at this!”</p><p>“We could be great!” Yosuke insists, flinging the card back at Kanji. “We just need more practice!”</p><p>“A training montage!” Kanji agrees. “Any skill takes practice.”</p><p>Souji glances down at his watch. “Well, can we practice another day? I should go home and make Nanako some dinner.”</p><p>Yosuke is trying to hide his relief that this awkward day is over when his memory stirs. Did his father ask him to do something today? Inventory? Maybe? Yes. Actually, he’d said something seven in the evening . . . Yosuke grabs Souji’s wrist, checks the time, and groans. “Shit, yeah. I really need to get back, I forgot I had work.”</p><p>Kanji nods as he shoves his bulging backpack into his bike basket. “It’s a deal then.”</p><p>Still wondering why Kanji seems so keen on helping them find girlfriends when he himself doesn’t want one, Yosuke puts on his helmet and hops on his scooter. He turns the key once. It sputters. Another time. Another sputter. He looks at the gas gage and—</p><p>“Shit!”</p><p>Souji is immediately at his side. “What’s wrong?”</p><p>“I knew I should’ve filled up on the way here. I just . . . wanted more money to fool around with,” he mutters that last sentence, embarrassed. He didn’t even use the money either because he didn’t find any girls to take out. <em>Stupid, stupid</em>. “Fuck, where’s the nearest gas station?” his eyes find the display on Souji’s watch again. “Fuck, dad’s gonna be mad. I should’ve paid more attention—”</p><p>“There’s a place two streets down,” Souji reassures him, putting a comforting hand on his back. “You could use my scooter to go pick some up?”</p><p>“But what about Nanako-chan? You shouldn’t keep her waiting.” Yosuke’s fingers tremble as he takes the keys out of the ignition. All he’s done today is make shit harder for Souji . . .</p><p>“If it’s not far, I’ll take you on my bike!” Kanji offers immediately. “I’d say you could just borrow it but then we’d have to adjust the seat and also the pedals stick sometimes—”</p><p>Yosuke hops off his scooter, torn between relief that he’s not inconveniencing Souji and reluctance to get too close to Kanji, for fear he’ll get . . . ideas. “Let’s just do it. Er, thanks.”</p><p>He clambers awkwardly up onto the tall bike behind his kouhai, trying to hold onto him as lightly as possible. He still has to get pretty close to Kanji’s back though to have any kind of stable grip. And it’s hard not to notice that the younger teen’s sides are harder with muscle than his own. Kanji makes a soft noise of understanding. “Ohhh . . . I get it. Up close and personal.”</p><p>“Dude!” Yosuke recoils, but doesn’t move his hands. He doesn’t have a lot of options at this point if he doesn’t want to fall off the bike. “That’s not what . . . this isn’t the same thing at all! I don’t even have b-boobs.”</p><p>He looks over at Souji when he says that, pleading silently with him not to misunderstand. He isn’t like Kanji. When he offered a ride to Souji that day they met, he wasn’t thinking like this . . .</p><p>Souji’s face has gone a bit blank, however. Yosuke can’t read his expression at all as he raises a hand in farewell. “Text me later when you guys get back, alright?”</p><p>“Will do!” Kanji agrees, and then, with a tiny grunt of effort, he pedals off in the direction Souji indicated.</p><p>Yosuke closes his eyes and puts as much distance between his body and Kanji’s as he can. <em>How did I mess all of this up so badly? </em></p><p>
  <em>Next time. Next time, I’ll get it right.</em>
</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Hey everyone, thanks a lot for reading! I'm hoping that Yosuke isn't too much of an asshole (or at least, he's still a loveable one and not just a shitty jerk?). The next chapter is going to be the camping trip and everything that happens there, so brrraaace yourselves haha. Also I think Souji is too soft. It's not quite how I see him in the game, but at this point I'm not entirely sure how to fix it ahaha. I hope everyone's characters are at least kinda recognizable? I'm still not done with the game lol, school just started after the summer and Naoto has appeared at school (NAOTTOOOOOO), so Yosuke has already seemed to calm down and mature a bit? But I don't know where exactly the characters are going er, so I should probably hold back on writing but like . . . I also just want to write, so here we are lol.</p><p>I really appreciate everyone's kind comments and kudos &lt;3 Thanks again! And thanks to my sibling for beta and advice!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>In which shit really hits the fan. CW: homophobia.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Yosuke has a lot of grand plans for redeeming himself to Souji on the school camping trip.</p><p>Sure, the main point of the trip is to clean up the mountain and “foster love for Inaba” in them. Honestly, that sounds exhausting, but Yosuke is positive he knows how to make the most of any field trip, especially if there’s even the slightest possibility they can go swimming in the river. He figures he owes Souji as many good memories of Inaba as he can get while he’s still here. Between trying to solve the murders and the Investigation Team’s forays into the TV world to save new potential victims, his best friend is starting to look frayed around the edges.  </p><p>Yosuke has it all figured out. Well, first he gets lucky; Chie and Yukiko announce that they’re going to cook for the group. Perfect! Souji is always cooking for his family, and Yosuke can only boil eggs for himself in emergencies, so he couldn’t be the one to give Souji a break. So, they’ll eat the girls’ cooking after a day of hard work (something anime promises is a divine experience), and then as soon as they can get away from the teachers, they’ll all go swimming. But that swimming has to be a surprise . . . so Yosuke packs both his swimsuits (so Souji can borrow one) and then, in a stroke of genius, decides to buy cute swimsuits for Chie and Yukiko. That sight ought to cheer Souji up!</p><p>Yosuke doesn’t let himself get hung up on the fact that Souji once told him (after some wheedling from Yosuke) that he wasn’t interested in either Chie or Yukiko as anything more than a friend. You don’t have to be interested in dating someone to appreciate how they look in a swimsuit. Yosuke estimates his friends’ sizes, drops some of his paycheck on bikinis he thinks will be to their tastes, and gives himself a nice mental pat on the back.</p><p>Back at home, he decides to put off his homework to make a playlist of songs he’s been wanting Souji to try for a bit now. When he lived in the city, he used to buy all these American CDs at a small music store near his house. He’s still in the process of ripping them and uploading them to his PC, cycling them through on the MP3 his parents got him for his last birthday (it’s a cheapo one that only holds about a hundred songs, but that’s still better than having to change out CDs). The ride to the mountain top will be about an hour, so it’s important that he gets the right set of music to share with Souji. He’s even going to pull out his most prized CDs that he hasn’t ripped yet: <em>All the Right Reasons </em>and <em>Darkhorse</em> by Nickelback, <em>Minutes to Midnight </em>by Linkin Park. He’s looked up some translations of the lyrics for these, but mostly he just likes the feeling of them; gritty and raw. He hopes Souji will like them too.</p><p>He ends up making a playlist that’s over seventy-five minutes and takes up all the space on his MP3. Ah, well. They can just finish it in the ride back, or maybe in the tent if they have time . . .</p><p>Oh yeah, the tent.</p><p>It’s obvious that they should share a tent; out of the Investigation Team, they’re the only two boys in their year. Poor Kanji will have to stay with another first-year, completely separated from the rest of them. But that means that Yosuke gets Souji all to himself for a bit, kind of like a sleepover. Which, honestly, is an experience he’s never had. Sure, he shared a room with his cousin for one summer when he was ten and he’s been to a couple of big sleepover birthday parties, but he’s never been close enough with a single person (relatives aside) to have a one-on-one sleepover.</p><p>He winces when he thinks that phrase. It sounds . . . dirty. Like a euphemism for staying over with a girl.</p><p>A few weeks ago, Yosuke had visited Souji’s bedroom for the first time. He’s a bit embarrassed whenever he remembers it now. He’d kind of invited himself over to Souji’s house and then barged into his room, though Souji hadn’t seemed to mind. Yosuke had just been too curious, and weirdly excited, like it was another step in their friendship to get to see each other’s private spaces. He’d wanted to know as much about his new best friend as possible. Much as he had suspected, Souji was extremely tidy. He also simply didn’t have very many things; just a few manga and novels, a couple DVDs, some memorabilia from an old video game he really liked, and his basketball gear in a duffle bag in one corner. He didn’t even have any posters or wall art, unless you counted the macaroni picture of a platypus that was clearly a gift from Nanako-chan.</p><p>There also weren’t any photos of Souji’s parents or any friends from the city, Yosuke noticed with a jolt. To be honest, it still looked like he was staying in a guest room for a few weeks and not living with his uncle for a whole year. After all, the first thing Yosuke had done after moving to this country town was smother is walls in idol posters and magazine art, aggressively asserting himself in the one place in Inaba he didn’t have to be the friendly Department Store Manager’s Son. Maybe Souji didn’t feel like even this space was his.</p><p>But instead of asking about anything meaningful like why Souji didn’t have any remnants of his old life, Yosuke had blurted out a nonsense question: “Have you ever had a girl over?”</p><p>At the time it had seemed important, just as it had seemed important to ascertain whether the exuberant Chie or the refined Yukiko was more Souji’s type of girl. Yosuke had even needled Souji to see his porn, which his partner blushingly denied owning. That was back before Yosuke had broken down about Saki, before Souji had helped him manage some aggressive employees, and before they had been to Kanji’s bathhouse in the TV world. Their friendship had been new and fragile, and Yosuke hadn’t trusted it yet. It was too easy to be open with calm and accepting Souji, too simple to be bonded by their shared near-death experiences and common cause. He had to know Souji’s tastes, though he hadn’t quite been able to put his finger on why. At first, he thought it was to compare himself to the other boy, to make sure that he himself was “normal.” After thinking over his shadow-self a bit more, he’d wondered if it was just because he wanted to fit himself to Souji’s preferences so he wouldn’t be cast aside—so that he could become the perfect best friend. Neither of those were particularly good looks.</p><p>Then, within the weeks after Kanji’s bathhouse, there came a nagging suspicion he keeps failing to quash. When Souji had confirmed he’d never had a girl over, that he wasn’t interested in Chie or Yukiko, and that he hadn’t ever dated, Yosuke had felt, well, happy. Not just relieved that he wasn’t the only high school boy who was behind (though it was hard to imagine Souji hadn’t had his chances with the way all the girls at Yasogami were mooning over him), but happy. Like a warm tingling under his skin, almost giddiness. And in the moments when he could somewhat bare to face himself, those dark hours after midnight and before dawn, he could almost admit that it was because he wanted to be the person who was closest to Souji.</p><p>Well, that didn’t have to mean he was interested in boys, he’d reminded himself constantly. He’d had tons of crushes on girls. Within the first few weeks of moving to Inaba he had asked Yukiko out; she had flatly rejected him and then walked home with her arm looped through Chie’s. Sometimes he half-heartedly tried to flirt with Chie, but she just didn’t seem to get it at all, and it rapidly turned into trading insults. Maybe that was supposed to be how flirting worked, but it didn’t really feel romantically charged, just familiar. He also had quite of few pictures and magazines of the teen idol Risette, beautiful, stylish, and perky. He knew he would probably never get within ten feet of her, but that was still attraction, right?</p><p>And then there was obviously Saki-senpai, who he is beginning to realize might have been his first love. The way his heart twists when he thinks of her . . . how kind she had been to him even though she hadn’t really liked him, how she must have suffered, both in the TV world and the real one . . . because Yosuke knows what it’s like to attract the ire of the town, to have to grin and bear it while they judge you and gossip . . . when he thinks about Saki-senpai, sometimes he wants to tear down all his silly posters of women and burn them, to admit that his fantasies of girls are childish and stupid compared to how she had really been . . . but he doesn’t.</p><p>He’s not ready.</p><p>Sometimes he wonders if the posters are just another way of projecting cheerfulness and normalcy to cover up how lonely he is, like his shadow accused him of doing. And then he wonders why he needs to hide that even from himself. It makes him question if he could also suppress . . . something like what Kanji suppressed . . . because, it hits him as he’s carefully packing his bag the night before and making sure to bring earbuds he can share with Souji instead of his usual clunky headphones, he’s spending a lot of time planning what he wants to do with his best friend and barely sparing a thought for the image of the objectively cute Chie and Yukiko in swimsuits.</p><p>But it can be normal to have a best friend who you put above everything else, right? It doesn’t have to be weird.</p><p>He’s not weird.</p><p>
  <em>Please don’t let me be weird. </em>
</p>
<hr/><p>Yosuke regrets not heeding Souji’s warning headshake as soon as he takes one bite of curry.</p><p>It’s an awful explosion of flavors and textures. Sickly sweet, salty, earthy, spicy, and somehow filled with chewy blobs of unidentifiable vegetables and who knows what else. He knows he should be polite and recognize the effort the girls took to make the food, but he gags as soon as he tries to swallow and ends up spitting it out on the grass.</p><p>“W-what--,” he sputters, eyes watering and stomach churning over the realization that he’d almost eaten the blob of goo now congealing on the ground. “Why?!”</p><p>“Is it really that bad?” If his mouth weren’t on fire right now, the trembling disappointment in Yukiko’s voice might have brought on feelings of guilt. “I thought we had managed okay?”</p><p>“I think Yosuke doesn’t have a refined palate,” Chie insists, pushing Souji’s plate closer to him on the picnic table. “He’s such a baby about anything spicy.”</p><p>Yosuke squints at his partner through his tears. Souji’s face is turning green, his eyes bulging as he stares down at the terrifying mass of “curry” in front of him. He picks up his spoon, hovering it over the plate. <em>He’s going to do it? Is there anything that guy can’t do?</em></p><p>Abruptly Souji sets down the spoon and drops his head in his hands. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I can’t do it! But thank you for trying!”</p><p>Chie pouts, but Yosuke can see a glimmer of doubt in her eyes. Souji is so polite, he’d only turn this down if it were truly impossible to consume. Yukiko gives a dainty sniff.</p><p>“You’re supposed to be able to put anything in curry,” Chie whines, poking at Souji’s plate and frowning. “I guess it’s possible to go too far.”</p><p>“I’d wondered if maybe the mint chocolate was a mistake,” Yukiko concedes, frowning down at her monstrous creation.</p><p>“Mint chocolate?” Yosuke gasps, still mostly sideways on the picnic bench. “Who in their right minds would put that in a curry?”</p><p>“Chocolate enhances spices!” Yukiko cries at the same time Chie points an accusing finger at Yosuke and declares, “I’d like to see you do better!”</p><p>Yosuke groans, trying to sit up properly but ending up with his forehead pressed against the coarse wood of the table. It’s going to take a lot of toothbrushing later to remove this awful taste. And he’s so hungry after an intense day of “loving Inaba” by picking up all the trash off the mountain. He reaches for a water bottle on the table to rinse out his mouth as best he can. If only there was something else to eat so he could chase this flavor away.</p><p>Apparently on a similar train of thought, Souji asks, “Are there any ingredients left?”</p><p>“There’s some rice,” Yukiko says. “Not much though, and nothing for a second round of curry. Besides, the others are cleaning up now and the sun is setting.”</p><p>Yosuke glances up at a scraping sound; Chie is doling out the last of their campfire rice. It’s barely enough for one person, let alone four hungry teens to try to make a meal out of it. The rest has been corrupted by heaping curry on their plates.</p><p>“Maybe we could ask around?” he tries, starting to feel desperate. “Maybe somebody else has leftovers?”</p><p>They scan the nearby tables hopefully, but it seems that everyone else is in the process of clearing away their dinners. There’s not so much as a packet of chips just lying around, not that Yosuke can see at least.</p><p>“I guess all we have is this rice.” Yukiko peers down at it. Yosuke can just imagine her calculating—maybe they could all get at least one bite.</p><p>“You two take it,” Souji insists, and Yosuke stifles another groan. “You cooked; you should have it.”</p><p>Of course, it’s probably the gentlemanly thing to do. Hunger makes Yosuke less inclined to be gentlemanly. This was not at all what he had expected—why had Yukiko and Chie offered to cook if they were so terrible at it? At least Yosuke knew himself well enough to realize he couldn’t be trusted with a pot, though at this point even a hardboiled egg would be something. Screw gender norms and giving Souji a break, he’d fight a whole host of shadows for one of his partner’s bento now!</p><p>He manages to hold his tongue as the girls accept the rice. It really is only a few bites, which doesn’t do much to soothe Yosuke’s feelings. Then they all work together to dispose of the toxic waste and thoroughly cleanse the pot. The stench is enough to make Yosuke’s stomach threaten to vomit again.</p><p>Once that’s taken care of, Yosuke and Souji bid goodnight to an apologetic Yukiko and Chie and head to the boys’ side of the camp to clean up (Yosuke uses so much toothpaste he almost gags again) and set up their tent on empty stomachs. Since they’re late from dinner, however, they get a terrible spot on the edge of a steep incline. To cap it off, neither of them has experience setting up a tent (they have an old weather-beaten one of Dojima’s that seems to be missing some key rods and stakes), and it’s quite dark before they rig something that will provide them passable protection from the elements while they sleep.</p><p>Needless to say, Yosuke is frustrated. Not even the thought of swimming the next morning or seeing the traitorous Chie and Yukiko in swimsuits provides him much comfort now. He should have trusted his initial gut reaction to a school clean-up trip—this sucks!</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Souji says after several minutes of working in silence. “I went to the store with them and I knew what they bought. I should have stopped them, I know, but they were trying to be nice and Yukiko has been learning how to cook and I didn’t want to discourage her.”</p><p>Yosuke watches his partner trying to unstick the tent zipper. “It’s not your fault,” he finally grunts. “You’re just too nice. Wait—how did you know Yukiko was trying to learn cooking?”</p><p>Souji lets out a small cry of joy followed immediately by a groan as the zipper temporarily releases only to get caught again. “She asked me to give her honest opinions about her bento a couple times. The first was . . . not very good. But the second was just under-seasoned so I thought maybe it would be alright. Aha!”</p><p>The zipper whines as Souji successfully manages to open the whole tent flap. Yosuke busies himself with packing up their tent-construction tools so he can hide his face from his friend. If Souji had told him earlier today that he’d been eating Yukiko’s homemade bento, he would have been incredibly jealous. Now that he knows what that would be like, he can’t say that he really envies his friend, though maybe he feels a bit weird that he didn’t know anything about Yukiko and Souji spending extra time together.</p><p>As if reading his thoughts, Souji says, “I guess I didn’t mention it because I didn’t want to embarrass Yukiko. But it put you in a bad position.”</p><p>“Ah, don’t sweat it,” Yosuke forces himself to sound cheerful for Souji’s sake, though his stomach chooses that moment to grumble loudly. “We’ll get normal breakfast tomorrow! That’s enough for me.”</p><p>He turns around to reassure Souji with a smile, only to find the other boy holding the flap to their tent open and half-bowing like he’s some kind of butler.</p><p>“What?” Yosuke half-laughs, half-sputters, startled out of his grumpy jealousy (if you could call it that, which Yosuke isn’t sure he should).</p><p>“<em>Après-vous, monsieur</em>,” Souji intones in a comically deep voice.</p><p>A grin forms on Yosuke’s face spite of himself. “Why thank you, Eric,” he nods to Souji solemnly before ducking down to crawl into the tent.</p><p>“Eric?” Souji asks with a chuckle following him in and settling down beside him.</p><p>Shrugging, Yosuke begins unrolling his sleeping bag, mindful of setting it too close to the slope’s edge. “That was the name of a butler on this drama my mom used to watch. It was about a rich Japanese family, but they had this French butler named Eric who was always covering up their love affairs and baking them fancy pastries . . . actually, that reminds me of you a bit.”</p><p>That startles a full laugh out of Souji, who is setting up his own sleeping arrangement beside Yosuke. “Oh? I don’t remember helping you cover up any love affairs.”</p><p>“Not that!” Yosuke is grateful that they only have a dim camp light, so his blush must not be very visible. “Just the baking and cooking . . .”</p><p>He glances over at Souji to see that he’s already climbed into his sleeping bag and his now raising his eyebrows at Yosuke from under the covers. “Hm, so you think I should be a professional chef?”</p><p>“No!” Yosuke insists, wrestling with his own bag. “Or like, sure, but that wasn’t my point! More like . . . you kind of feel like a foreigner? Like, I know we’re both city boys and all, but you just seem like you’re from somewhere completely different than here, like another dimension maybe, but like, in a cool way, and you’re always very helpful. Er, not like a servant, I mean, just, you know how to handle people. Like, if you hadn’t been there, I probably would have been ruder to Yukiko and Chie at dinner . . . and then Chie would have punched me. And then I’d be bruised as well as hungry . . .”</p><p>He slides into his bag to avoid looking at Souji. What on earth is he even saying at this point? He must sound like a real idiot. And what kind of teen boy pays attention to soap operas aimed at middle-aged housewives?</p><p>“I see.”</p><p>Souji doesn’t sound mad, only thoughtful, but Yosuke can’t seem to stop himself from babbling more inane explanations.</p><p>“Not that I think you like, have to help people, you’re not a literal butler, but you're very good at, like, knowing what to do or say. Especially for me! Not that you have to, er, I’m probably a huge burden, haha, but I appreciate it all the same and I hope that one day maybe I can help you half as much as you’ve helped me. Uh, I’m sure Yukiko, Kanji, and Chie feel the same.”</p><p>His face is burning, and he wishes he could sink into the ground. Where did all of that so suddenly come from? Is it because he’s lightheaded from hunger? Is it because Souji had seemed to like his playlist this morning on the bus ride here and now Yosuke apparently thinks he can bare his soul to the other boy? He doesn’t want to look at his partner now, but he also feels like he must because he just has to know what Souji’s thinking—just how disgusted and how embarrassed he is.</p><p>But when he glances over the top of his sleeping bag, he finds Souji looking directly at him with clear gray eyes, though his cheeks are slightly flushed. It’s in this moment that Yosuke finally realizes how tightly packed they are in the tent; if he leaned forward just a couple inches, he could count Souji’s eyelashes.</p><p>
  <em>Don’t notice another dude’s eyelashes!</em>
</p><p>“You’re not a burden,” Souji says softly, startling Yosuke back to their conversation. “In fact, I think you’ve helped me way more than I’ve helped you.”</p><p>“What?” Yosuke squawks. “Absolutely not! What about my, uh, shadow?”</p><p>Fabric rustles as Souji shakes his head, still keeping his gaze on Yosuke. “That’s nothing.”</p><p>“Nothing? I would have died!”</p><p>“Okay,” Souji amends, “It’s not nothing in the sense that it doesn’t mean anything, it just evens out because you do so much for me, right? I’m sure you’ve saved me hundreds of times in the TV world already. So just don’t,” here he finally glances down, and Yosuke finds himself gawking at his best friend’s soft eyelashes again, “put me on a pedestal, okay? We’re partners.”</p><p>What is this warm feeling expanding in Yosuke’s chest, overtaking even his grumbling stomach and light head? It’s nice, but also a bit terrifying, like sharing a cozy tent with someone you care about on the edge of a cliff. <em>It’s still not the same</em>, part of him wants to object, <em>saving my life is one thing, but you accepted me and helped me even after seeing how shitty I can be. No one else can say that. </em>But maybe if he actually vocalized these fears, he’ll sound like he’s begging for more reassurances.</p><p>“A-alright,” he mutters instead. He struggles to swallow and finds his mouth has suddenly gone very dry.</p><p>“So.” A shit-eating grin spreads across Souji’s face. “If you ever need to cover up a love affair, please don’t hesitate to ask for my help.”</p><p>“What?” Yosuke jumps on the opportunity for a mood change and frees one of his hands to aggressively ruffle Souji’s hair. Despite all the working and sweating they’ve been doing today, it’s still soft.</p><p>“As your loyal butler, I would do anything to help you, sir!” Souji grabs Yosuke’s wrist in a firm grip and tries to fend him off. Of course, this is an exciting challenge that Yosuke now has to win. He hoists himself up a bit to get a better angle for giving Souji a noogie.</p><p>“Oh, would you? What if I seduce some big CEO’s daughter and it causes a horrible scandal?”</p><p>“Well,” Souji answers, very calm for someone in the midst of a fierce bout of arm wrestling. “Master Hanamura is above reproach and would never seduce a lady. Perhaps she simply fell for his manly charms.”<br/>
<br/>
“You—”<br/>
<br/>
“Senpai?”</p><p>Both Yosuke and Souji freeze at the sound of a voice outside their tent. It’s in this moment that Yosuke becomes aware that he is half on top of Souji, their arms all tangled up together, their noses almost touching.</p><p>“Senpai?” the voice calls again, and Yosuke, with a sickening jolt, recognizes it as Kanji’s. “Can I come in?”</p><p>Yosuke rolls off of Souji just as Kanji unzips the tent flap and pokes his unnaturally blond head in, “Sorry, but the guys in my tent were acting all scared and shit, so I was wondering if I could stay with you—”</p><p>He trails off, looking between them. Yosuke’s pulse races. Souji’s hair is all mussed and his face is red. Yosuke doubts he looks much better. Their sleeping bags are dangerously close. It must look suspicious . . . <em>but we weren’t doing anything weird! Who knows what conclusions someone like Kanji will jump to! And why does he want to be in our tent?</em></p><p>Yosuke opens his mouth to snap something about how first-years aren’t supposed to bunk with second-years, horrified to have been interrupted in whatever it was he had been doing by Kanji of all people, but Souji gets there first. “Yeah,” he says, smiling widely, though Yosuke hears a slight crack in his voice. “C’mon in!”</p><p>Kanji frowns, clearly still suspicious of something, but he accepts Souji’s invitation all the same. That annoys Yosuke for some reason. Maybe because the tent seems to shrink as soon as the bulky younger boy crams himself in on Souji’s other side. Or maybe it’s because Kanji is butting in, yet again. <em>Though</em>, a soothing voice that sounds an awful lot like Souji pipes up in his mind, <em>it must have been rough for him to be stuck with people who were scared of him. And why should you be so worked up about being interrupted anyway? What were you so excited about?</em></p><p>Yosuke’s empty stomach turns over.</p><p>It’s at this moment that Souji shifts to allow Kanji more room, his hip and shoulder brushing against Yosuke’s. A strange heat builds wherever they have contact, but if Yosuke moves further back, he’ll get too close to the cliff edge.</p><p>He’s trapped.</p><p>“So,” Kanji begins, drawing his knees up to his chest in a useless attempt to give Souji and Yosuke more room. “Any new ideas about who’s pushing people into the TVs?”</p><p><em>That’s</em> what he wants to talk about? At a time like this? “I dunno,” grumbles Yosuke, crossing his arms over his chest and willing his face to cool down. “Maybe King Moron? He seems like the kind of bastard that would kill teenagers.”</p><p>He’s being a bit facetious, but Kanji nods earnestly. “That’s actually what I’ve been thinking. He’s been so shitty today, putting everyone down all the time and then sneaking alcohol and stuff, I wondered if he had a grudge against the students or something.”</p><p>At this point, Kanji pulls a small packet out of the pocket of his track pants. He sets it down in the tiny space between their feet and Yosuke gets a good look at the label. Animal crackers. Another time, Yosuke might have teased Kanji for such a childish snack preference, but how the thought of anything that isn’t Yukiko and Chie’s curry is overwhelmingly enticing. His stomach grumbles. It’s such a small container though, can he really ask for one . . . or three . . . ?</p><p>“But,” Souji says, apparently impervious to the temptation of Kanji’s food. “Why would Morooka-sensei kill the announcer woman? They don’t have any connection, do they?”</p><p>“Maybe he like, hit on her at a bar or something and she turned him down?”</p><p>Yosuke can barely parse what Kanji is saying now, so abrupt and complete is his fascination with the animal crackers. So, this is the power of hunger. He hopes none of the shadows have some kind of spell that can inflict him like this. He tries to tear his eyes away from the packet and focus on the conversation instead, but the second Kanji opens the seal, he starts salivating.</p><p>Souji is responding now, but Yosuke can’t really hear it. Maybe Kanji is actually a godsend, not an interruption. Now that the packet is open, it shouldn’t be too hard to just take one. Besides, Kanji put the box in the middle of them all, as if he’s offering a shared treat. If Yosuke could just get a bit of food inside him, just enough to ward off the headache that’s already started in the center of his forehead, that could get him through till the morning.</p><p>Cautiously, still unconvinced that he has any right to do this without asking, but too embarrassed to actually ask, Yosuke reaches into the box and pulls out a tiny golden bear. When Kanji and Souji continue talking without reacting, he just pops it into his mouth.</p><p>He’s never tasted anything so good, but far from satiating him, it seems to whet his appetite with how quickly it melts on his tongue. His stomach complains that one tiny cracker is nothing, especially when he hasn’t eaten all day, and Yosuke allows himself to be talked into grabbing another.</p><p>Kanji finally catches him on the fifth cracker.</p><p>“Hey!” his kouhai yells, causing both Yosuke and Souji to jump. “What’re you doing?”</p><p>“Qu-quiet down!” Yosuke hisses, heart-pounding as he quickly swallows his stolen bounty. “Do you want to get caught?”</p><p>“You’re the one whose caught!”</p><p>Yosuke flinches away from Kanji’s accusing finger, unable to look at him or Souji. Guilt is tempered by indignation. “I . . . I thought maybe they were . . . you know . . .ah, forget it.” He sinks back into his sleeping bag.</p><p>He should apologize. The words get stuck in this throat. Why didn’t he just ask? Why did he always have to be so <em>weird</em>? Why couldn’t he ever be properly nice to Kanji, like Souji?</p><p>“That was my dinner!” Kanji continues to accuse, clutching the packet to his chest. “I didn’t have time to pack anything else.”</p><p>The shame welling up in Yosuke is too much to bear. It clashes with his other feelings of resentment and confusion over Kanji, boiling over in the worst possible way.</p><p>“Why did you come here anyway? I don’t know if I feel comfortable sleeping next to you!” he frantically lashes out.</p><p>“What?” Kanji and Souji cry at the same time.</p><p>“Can you really control yourself? I don’t want to be attacked in the middle of the night, or something!”</p><p>Some part of Yosuke recognizes that this is not an appropriate response to being caught stealing animal crackers. Another part of Yosuke just wants to shove Kanji away in any way he can; for butting in here, for somehow constantly providing Yosuke with opportunities to expose what a shitty person he really is in front of Souji, for making him feel weird about his relationship with his best friend . . .</p><p>When Yosuke finally steals a glance at Kanji, he sees the other boy has gone completely white. “You—you want to fight?”</p><p>Yosuke’s blood turns to ice. No, he most certainly does <em>not</em> want to fight a guy who has several inches on him in every possible sense. Even if they were in the TV World and allowed the use of their weapons and personas, Yosuke doesn’t think he could duel Kanji. He and Jiraiya are fast, but it would take just one of Take-Mikazuchi’s lightning strikes to bring him down, and his kunai don’t have anywhere near the kind of range of Kanji’s improvised weapons.  Luckily, that’s never come up before because they’re the Investigation <em>Team</em> working together to catch whoever is terrorizing Inaba with the TV world . . .</p><p>. . . or are they going to be a team anymore, with the way Yosuke’s behaving now?</p><p>“I’m tired of you pushing my buttons!” Kanji continues, voice rising again. “If you want to go, let’s just go!”</p><p>Yosuke knows he’s at fault here, knows that he should try to salvage this mess he’s making before he ruins not just his friendships, but the possibility of working together in the future. But his stomach groans and he’s so tired. So instead, he points right back at Kanji, “Why are you always so violent? You can’t solve everything with your fists!”</p><p>“That’s enough!” Souji intervenes with more authority than Yosuke is used to from his best friend. Both Yosuke and Kanji flinch from their leader's stern frown, and it's suddenly readily apparent how he and Dojima are related. “No fighting here.”</p><p>“Damn straight,” Kanji mutters, getting up on his knees and crawling towards the tent flap. “I’m leaving.”</p><p>“No, it’s too late, you’ll get caught!” Souji insists just as Yosuke crosses his arms and mumbles, “Good riddance.”</p><p>He winces when Souji whips around to glare at him. “What <em>is</em> your problem?”</p><p>Kanji slips out while Yosuke is struggling to find words, his heart in his throat. This distracts his (now former?) best friend, who quickly ducks out after their kouhai. “Wait!”</p><p>Now alone in the tent, Yosuke’s body begins to tremble. He can hear distant rustling outside, the soft call of Souji’s voice, but he can’t make out any words. His eyes itch and blur.</p><p><em>What </em>is <em>my problem?</em></p><p>Maybe he should go after them? A hot tear drips down his nose, and he angrily swipes it away. He’s behaved disgracefully enough already, if he tries to talk to Kanji now, he’ll probably mess it up even more. He’ll spew another round of stupid shit, and then Souji will have to clean it all up again. To think, earlier this evening Souji had insisted Yosuke wasn’t a burden to him; surely, he realizes how wrong he was now, if he hadn’t been lying before.</p><p>Yosuke huddles deep within his sleeping bag, turning his back to the empty tent. His throat tightens with shame, and his already aching head now pounds with the effort of holding back tears. He doesn’t have the right to cry like a baby right now. He messed up.</p><p><em>But did I? Kanji </em>is <em>weird, who knows if he could control himself around sleeping guys . . .</em></p><p><em>. . . then what about you? </em>Whispers a treacherous voice in his mind. <em>Don’t you remember what you learned from facing your shadow? What you hate in others is really what you hate about yourself. Just what were you doing with Souji earlier? What kind of feelings do you actually have for him? Can </em>you <em>control yourself? Clearly you can’t even practice self-restraint over a couple of crackers--</em></p><p>“Argh!” Yosuke claps his hands over his ears as if that will have any effect. “I’m not like that, I’m not like that, I’m not—”</p><p>
  <em>“You’re not me!”</em>
</p><p>The words he’d hurled at his shadow months ago come rushing back to his mind just as he hears footsteps outside, followed by the crinkling of the tent flap.</p><p>Yosuke freezes, still hunched up in his bag. There’s a lot of rustling, then a grunt that sounds like Kanji and a muttered “sorry” from Souji. They’ve both come back. Yosuke doesn’t know whether to be relieved or not. No one tries to talk to him, and after some initial settling in, someone turns out the small camplight and heavy silence settles over the tent.</p><p>Stuck on a precipice, Yosuke squeezes his eyes shut and begs the world to allow him the temporary reprieve of sleep.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Hoooooooooo boooooooooooooy</p><p>First, I'm sorry it took me a while to write this. I kept getting stuck and I'm not sure I'm happy with it; it's "good enough" . . . I have long since finished Persona 4 and I struggled coming back to the fic because I think Yosuke grows a lot and the further I got passed these events the less I wanted to dwell on them? Especially because I think Golden plays a lot of these scenes for laughs er. I also became reluctant to finish this (even though I don't like leaving things unfinished) because what I actually want right now is fic about how Souji learns to lean on Yosuke and why Souji loves Yosuke ahahah. But well, I also want to cope with Yosuke's internalized homophobia too.</p><p>As you can see, I cut out Kanji's canon reaction to Yosuke and the fatshaming, and even so it's like . . . a lot. I'm not sure if I should have toned down Kanji's "now time to storm the girls' camp" reaction while leaving everything Yosuke does pretty much the same. Maybe that takes away from some of the complexity; Yosuke provokes Kanji and Kanji also reacts badly and the whole thing spirals from there. Er, I guess I just wanted Yosuke to be the primary one growing here, but I can see that that's not like . . . canon. It's often played for laughs in the game, but Yosuke and Kanji going at it totally makes sense to me from just my own experiences and Jungian psychology; they recognize their insecurities about manliness and queerness in each other but they deal with it in radically different ways. Yosuke can't help but poke at the things he's afraid of in Kanji, and Kanji, insecure in his masculinity, reacts strongly to defend himself. Maybe one day I'll explore that dynamic, but I decided not to so much here, mostly because I think Yosuke's is always the instigator--Kanji would leave things be if he could. </p><p>I'm sorry, I didn't re-watch it either to make sure I had most of the details right; I mostly wrote from memory. I hope the teens are mostly in character? Maybe my Yosuke is a bit too introspective er, that tends to happen to my POV characters a lot haha. Thanks for reading, and for all your comments and likes!! It really means a lot to me :)</p><p>(I tried to be careful about tagging, but if you ever need a tag let me know and I will add it!!)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Yosuke works to right his wrongs, and maybe is a little more honest with himself than usual.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Yosuke’s prayers for sleep go ungranted, although he does hover on the edge of unconsciousness for a few hours. In between hazy half-dreams of him either rolling off the cliff or being yelled at by everyone from Souji to his mother, Yosuke listens to the even sounds of Souji and Kanji’s breathing. How can they sleep so peacefully when Yosuke’s heart is pounding loudly enough to wake the whole camp? His back cramps, his skull throbs, his eyes burn.</p><p>Eventually, a dull morning light seeps through the thin fabric of the tent. Someone behind Yosuke stirs. Then there’s the soft hiss of the tent zipper, and with surprisingly little noise, that person sneaks out of the tent. After a few seconds of remaining still, Yosuke deduces it must have been Kanji; Souji’s body heat is still warming his back. Wow, Kanji can be stealthy when he wants. If Yosuke hadn’t been awake in the first place, the usually brash and impulsive younger boy probably wouldn’t have disturbed him.</p><p>Now Yosuke has to make an important decision. If he follows Kanji to the first-years’ camp and gets caught, he’ll be in trouble. But if he doesn’t speak up now, when will they be alone again? He can’t stand the thought of saying what needs to be said in front of Chie, Yukiko, or even Souji, for various reasons. And it’s not like he can just call Kanji later. Besides the fact that they don’t even text yet, Yosuke doubts that Kanji would pick up after what he said last night.</p><p>So, with less grace than his junior, Yosuke eases out of his sleeping bag and wrestles his water bottle from his backpack to give himself a plausible excuse for wandering around if a teacher catches him. He then awkwardly crawls over Souji’s still form and out of the tent, unable to so much as glance at his friend. There’s no way he can face even a sleeping Souji until he’s said his piece to Kanji.</p><p>Mist shrouds the mountainside, and for a moment Yosuke tenses up, thinking of the supernatural fog that precedes terrible happenings in the TV world. But this is merely morning condensation, thin and wispy where the fog is thick and foreboding. It will turn to dew when the sun comes up and vanish in the summer heat.</p><p>Kanji hasn’t gotten far. Yosuke can dimly discern his outline near the trees at the edge of their camp, creeping back to his proper place in the high school hierarchy. Shrugging his track jacket closer to ward off the morning chill, Yosuke follows at a stealthy but purposeful pace.</p><p>He catches up to the other boy right at the tree line, finally calling out when he’s close enough that he won’t have to raise his voice.</p><p>“Kanji!”</p><p>With a stifled yelp, Kanji turns. It’s difficult to read his expression in the gloom, but Yosuke definitely catches the way his shoulders tense. He controls his own wince.</p><p>“What do you want?” Kanji finally grumbles, stuffing his hands in his pockets.</p><p>For once, Kanji leaves off the formal “senpai.” The younger teen may be a bit of a punk, but it suddenly strikes Yosuke that he’s usually a stickler for honorifics. The absence of them can’t be a good sign.</p><p>Yosuke takes a deep breath. Well, he probably deserves it.</p><p>“C-can we talk? I have s-something to say.”</p><p>He makes a sweeping gesture to the little copse of trees behind Kanji.</p><p>“Fine,” the first year finally grunts after a moment of hesitation. He turns on his heel and strides forward without glancing back.</p><p>Yosuke swallows hard and follows his kouhai’s lead.</p><p>It’s even darker in the thicket. A tiny thrill of fear runs down Yosuke’s spine, though even he has to admit that it’s not from being alone with Kanji, whatever he said to the other boy last night. It’s the uneasiness that descends upon him in the shadows while the question of who’s murdering residents of Inaba remains unanswered.</p><p>“So,” Kanji grumbles, rounding on him. “What is it?”</p><p>Despite having a vague mental outline of the apology he wants to make, now that his moment is here, Yosuke struggles to find his voice. The silence stretches out between them. When Kanji opens his mouth and takes a step back, Yosuke knows he has to speak now or forever hold his peace.</p><p>He closes his eyes and bows, hoping that he reaches the right depth to communicate how sorry he is without going so far that he further insults Kanji.</p><p>“Please forgive me!”</p><p>“Wha—oh, um, hey dude, that’s . . . woah.”</p><p>The embarrassed alarm in Kanji’s voice makes Yosuke think maybe he’s going too far. Is he making a big deal of nothing? Maybe it’s worse to put Kanji through this awkward situation on top of what he did and said last night.</p><p><em>“What </em>is <em>your problem?”</em></p><p>Souji’s voice rings in his head loud and clear. Yosuke stifles a groan and forces himself to keep going.</p><p>“First, I’m sorry for taking your animal crackers. I was really hungry, but that’s no excuse. Secondly, I—” Now that he’s made the easier apology, he stumbles on how exactly to phrase the most important part. “I’m sorry for, um, lashing out at you. I said things . . . I didn’t mean.”</p><p>That’s not enough, and he knows it. He screws up his face and fights with himself to get it out. “I said . . . that I was afraid to be in the tent with you . . . because . . . of the fact you might like b-boys . . . that was shitty of me. I was wrong. I’m sorry.”</p><p>Kanji shifts his weight from one foot to another.</p><p>“It’s okay. I guess I get where you were coming from. Uh, can you please stop bowing, senpai?”</p><p>He’s using honorifics again. Yosuke quickly straightens, but he still can’t find the strength to meet Kanji’s eyes, so he says his next words to the skull on the taller teen’s t-shirt.</p><p>“I . . . I wasn’t coming from anywhere. What I said, it’s inexcusable. I’m not . . . I’m not really afraid of you.”</p><p>His voice trails off to a whisper. Kanji makes a strangled noise.</p><p>“Look, let’s not make a big deal of it, yeah? I know I’m weird, alright? You don’t gotta rub it in anymore.”</p><p>“What?” Startled, Yosuke finally looks at Kanji’s face. The other teen’s eyes gleam in the grey light of the copse, but he’s looking to the side, his chin jutting out defensively. “That’s not what I’m doing! I’m—”</p><p>Frustrated, Yosuke casts around his brain for something to say that will make Kanji understand his apology is genuine.</p><p>“There are many forms of love!” he blurts.</p><p>He almost smacks his forehead. Ugh, that’s what the spokeswoman for their project to clean up the mountain had said yesterday afternoon. <em>“There are many forms of love. Romantic love, yes, but also familial love, community love, and love for the environment! Love always generates positive things!”</em></p><p>Kanji blinks down at him. Now Yosuke’s really done it; he must sound so phony now! But the truth is just that the woman’s phrasing had struck him for some reason. He’d filed it away in his head to think about later, when he wasn’t hungry, exhausted, and feeling very resentful of Yasoinaba and its mountains.</p><p>“Senpai, that’s . . . that’s really nice.”</p><p>Yosuke doesn’t think Kanji is a good enough actor to fake how touched he sounds. Guilt wars with relief in his mind. That should not have worked.</p><p>“I think that . . . er, real love can only bring good things,” Yosuke continues, trying to make up for borrowing someone else’s words by adding more of his own. “Er, like . . . if you care about someone, like really care then, that’s only a good thing. Even if it’s not my type of love, or I don’t understand it, I can get that at least. So, what I said yesterday, that was just me being afraid for no reason. You . . . you seem kinda scary on the outside, but you just really care about everyone, I can see that.” Images of Kanji trying to help with all of his ill-planned girlfriend finding schemes flash through his mind, along with how Kanji had tried to reassure him immediately after confronting his shadow in the bathhouse. “Honestly, you’re way kinder than me and . . . I know you wouldn’t hurt anyone who wasn’t an asshole or something, even if you do l-like b-boys.”</p><p>It’s kind of a meandering speech, and Yosuke tells the entirety of it to his own shoelaces, but when he’s finished, Kanji gives a hearty sniff.</p><p>“So, I’m sorry again and, um, thanks for putting up with me.”</p><p>At these words, Kanji crushes Yosuke in a hug. “Senpai!” he says, his voice thick. “You’re actually kind too, you know that?”</p><p>“Keep your voice down!” Yosuke wheezes, struggling to breathe under the weight of Kanji. “A-and don’t say that, I’m n-not. Just let me apologize, dammit!”</p><p>Kanji gives him one last squeeze before releasing him. Yosuke quickly gulps down some air. He starts coughing when Kanji gives him a solid whack on the shoulder. <em>If this is his strength when he’s being friendly, it’s a really good thing we didn’t fight.</em></p><p>“Look, senpai, I . . . I get it. I had a whole freaky Midnight Channel TV show about being afraid of myself because I like girly things, and I like dudes, and everybody kept telling me that was weird. You helped me out with that, you saved my life. I wasn’t going to hold this against you.”</p><p>This is too much. It’s too far. Yosuke struggles to speak around the lump in his throat. “You—you shouldn’t be so casual about what I said. It wasn’t a small thing. You can be mad about it even if I did help you earlier. You can be mad about it even though I apologized.”</p><p>
  <em>I would be.</em>
</p><p>Yosuke swallows.</p><p>Kanji’s intense stare bores into Yosuke for several agonizing moments. Then he sighs and shrugs.</p><p>“I don’t actually feel mad anymore, honestly. You coming to talk to me about it is enough for me. I’m not gonna worry about it.”</p><p>“That’s . . . really mature of you, Kanji.”</p><p>That earns Yosuke another whack to his shoulder.</p><p>“Oh, shut it!” Kanji growls, though he sounds a little pleased.</p><p>Yosuke’s eyes begin to itch again. His chest tightens painfully. If he had been in Kanji’s place, he would have struggled harder, maybe never managed to forgive the other person. He was so fragile compared to his kouhai. How shameful.</p><p>“W-we should probably get back now. Before the teachers catch us.”</p><p>Yosuke’s voice cracks as he tries to fight off a sudden tide of self-disgust. Wasn’t apologizing supposed to make him feel better? What was this shit?</p><p>“Oh, yeah.” Kanji glances back towards the camp. “Shit yeah, I don’t want to run into that King Moron guy. I’m sorry you and all the other senpai have to put up with that bastard. I really do think he might be the murderer, you know.”</p><p>Yosuke half-nods, not really in the mood for going over the details of the case right now.</p><p>They part ways after that, as they shouldn’t be found outside of their tents. Yosuke is suddenly dizzy, but he can’t tell if that’s the effect of a burden being lifted from his mind or the fact that he’s finally awake enough to remember he’s hungry.</p><p>He stumbles back to the tent, shoes squelching on the dew-covered grass. The mist is clearing, the sky lightening, even though the sun hasn’t quite peeked out over the horizon yet. Still, he can make out the shape of Inaba in the valley, the little sleepy houses and winding roads, Junes awkwardly hovering on the edge of the town.  <em>Is that ever going to fit in? Or is it just going to mess up this place?</em></p><p>At the cliff’s edge, he spots Dojima’s dingy tent, haphazardly set up by two city boys with barely any camping experience. If he wasn’t feeling so badly, he might take a moment to laugh at the sad sight. Well, at least there’s one thing Souji can’t do any better than him, one level where they’re actually equal. He sighs to himself and picks his way over to the tent to try to sneak back in without disturbing Souji.</p><p>When he opens the tent flap, he finds Souji sitting up in his sleeping bag, his silver hair an endearing shock of bedhead and a striped bikini top arranged carefully over his track suit.</p><p>Yosuke isn’t sure what noise he makes, only that it’s not something within the usual human range.</p><p>“Oh, good morning!” Souji says, offering him a bright smile that belies their tension last night. “I don’t think this one suits me either, I think I had much better go with the bows.”</p><p>He holds up the frillier top Yosuke had selected for the more traditionally feminine Yukiko.</p><p>“H-how—?” Is all Yosuke can manage, still hunching awkwardly in the tent entrance.</p><p>“Ah, I’m sorry, I saw the colorful fabric poking out from your backpack and my curiosity got the better of me. They’re very stylish!”</p><p>Yosuke’s eyes follow Souji’s pointing finger, where he sees that he didn’t fully close up his backpack this morning when he grabbed his water bottle. The edge of a bikini bottom pokes out, taunting him with his own stupidity.</p><p>Face burning, Yosuke snatches the swimsuit out of Souji’s loose grip and stuffs it away in his sleeping bag. Before he can fully consider wrestling the other top off his friend, Souji carefully removes it and hands it over.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Souji repeats, and the softness in his voice startles Yosuke into actually meeting his gaze. “I shouldn't have gone through your stuff. And that wasn't much of a joke, was it?”</p><p>Yosuke squirms, absentmindedly twisting the straps of the swimsuit around in his hands.</p><p>“It's not . . . I just . . . I was hoping I could get through this without you seeing them. But I deserve to be made fun of, it was a shitty idea. I was going to suggest we go swimming with the girls, but also, I wanted . . . well, hell, just look at the suits. Shit, I’m terrible.” Yosuke groans and presses his forehead to his knees. “I’ve just been full of shitty ideas lately. And shitty words.” He shifts a little to turn his hunched posture into a proper bow. “I’ve apologized to Kanji. There won’t be any more problems between us if I can help it. I’m sorry I was a burden to you again. I w-won’t do it anymore.”</p><p>“No! Ah! Yosuke!” Warm hands grip Yosuke’s shoulders and encourage him back into a sitting position. Souji’s cheeks are ever-so-slightly pink, but he maintains eye contact as he speaks. “I didn’t mean to make fun of you just now. Honestly.”</p><p>Yosuke tries to shrug. Souji maintains his hold on his shoulders, so he slumps his head instead. “What’s with you and Kanji? You’re making this way too easy.”</p><p>Souji raises his eyebrows. “I don’t think so. I actually think I just messed up. I, um, I’m not always good with conflict myself.”</p><p>“You?” Yosuke scoffs. “You put everyone at ease all the time. No one can ever be mad at you.”</p><p>“Exactly.” Souji pauses to smile at Yosuke’s obvious confusion. “<em>I</em> avoid conflict, all the time. Hell, I haven’t even had to face my shadow. Just now, when I heard you both leave, I knew you’d probably gone to talk with him. And because I was feeling tense, I tried to be silly to lighten the mood. To smooth stuff over, to pretend it never happened. That’s . . . that’s not what this moment needs, and it was in bad taste. But you,” and here, after a split second of hesitating, he transfers his hands to the sides of Yosuke’s face. They’re a bit rough actually, slightly chapped and calloused from wielding weapons in the shadow realm, but Yosuke’s breath catches in his throat all the same. “You address problems when they happen, you take responsibility for them. Sometimes you hurt people, but you can admit when you’ve done wrong, which, honestly, I’m not always good at myself. That makes me trust you. That makes everyone trust you. We rely on you.”</p><p>He smiles, his grey gaze steady even as his blush spreads to his ears. “Sometimes, I think you take too much credit for being wrong. You can share that burden with me too. Like just now, I was wrong--about trying to make light of something serious, about going through your things, about the type of joke I made. I should just say I screwed up and apologize.”</p><p>“What?” Yosuke knows he’s gaping like a fish. “Partner, th-that’s crazy. I’m—”</p><p>
  <em>A disappointment. A walking mistake. An embarrassment waiting to happen. Abnormal. </em>
</p><p>The words die in his throat. Instead, he croaks, “Why are you always so nice to me?”</p><p>
  <em>I don’t deserve it.</em>
</p><p>Souji’s fingers flutter against Yosuke’s cheeks. He shifts, and abruptly Yosuke becomes aware of how close their faces are. He can even feel the soft puff of Souji’s breath on his nose. It wouldn’t take much—just to lean in a couple inches, just to slightly tilt their heads to the side—to fit their lips together in a . . . in a . . .</p><p>Kiss.</p><p>They’re close enough to kiss.</p><p>As soon as Yosuke allows himself to name the tension he feels, Souji releases his face to pat his shoulders again instead.</p><p>“You’re a good friend and a good teammate, Yosuke Hanamura. I wouldn’t be here without you.”</p><p>Yosuke’s heart thumps in his chest, a strange disappointment warring with relief that Souji takes his hands away and settles back into his own sleeping bag. The praise and touch had felt so good after all of his shame last night, awakening a peculiar yet familiar yearning in the pit of his stomach. No one had ever talked to him like this before, not even his parents. When they said, “We rely on you,” it twisted like a knife in a wound, a preemptive scolding if he didn’t meet their expectations in some way. When Souji said it, or when Kanji told him he was kind, the words were a soothing balm. He couldn’t possibly deserve this treatment for doing the most basic and obvious thing after hurting another person’s feelings, but he also wanted to bask in it a bit more. Maybe he could do something to actually earn it one day.</p><p>He glances at Souji, who is now lying down with his eyes shut. His hair sticks up in all directions across his pillow. Yosuke wonders if anyone else has gotten to see Souji like this before. It’s so intimate, a kind of closeness he’s certainly never been able to share with someone else. He has a sudden vision of his best friend waking up on a spring morning much like this one, smiling charmingly at a faceless girl next to him in bed while she lovingly sets his hair to right. Maybe he would put his hands on the side of her face too, maybe she would wonder how he had gotten all those scars. Or maybe she would know, because she would be with them in the TV World, fighting alongside him in the position that Yosuke currently occupies.</p><p>“Don’t stew, Master Hanamura.” Souji startles him by speaking, cracking open one eye and smiling slyly. “You should get a bit more sleep while you can. You have many lovers to meet today, and I have a lot of baking to do when we get home.”</p><p>“Oh, stuff it!” Yosuke grumbles, flinging the bikini tops back at his friend and scrunching himself into his own camping bed again. He tries to ignore the way his stomach grumbles at Souji merely mentioning baking.</p><p>“Master!” Souji gasps in mock horror. “Please don’t throw your love tokens at me! Those are treasures!”</p><p>“You should go burn them, Eric,” Yosuke mutters into the flannel fabric of his sleeping bag. “Get rid of all the evidence of my mistakes.”</p><p>Just as Yosuke’s eyes finally flutter closed and sleep is stealing over him once more, he thinks he hears Souji say, “Loving someone isn’t a mistake.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>**actually, since I don't really beta things I post like a wild child, can someone tell me if the ending is a problem? like to me it was a reference to 'love affairs' from the previous chapter, and they're kind of joking around with that, but maybe it comes off as like . . . creepy? If so, I will definitely change it!** ---&gt; I changed it anyway, I think this is better now!</p><p>heeeeeeeyyyyy everyone, thanks for reading all the way to the end :) I really appreciate it!</p><p>a couple rambling notes, as per usual!</p><p>Mostly . . . I don't know if all of this feels too easy. If getting Yosuke to actually apologize feels too easy, if the way he does it is too dramatic (or just hard to read because I wrote all of his ramblings in the way I think it could come out of a person's mouth, but it's not actually good to read . . . er), if Kanji accepts it too easily, if Souji's speech at the end actually feels earned/feels like a real description of Yosuke's character. It's definitely how I see Yosuke, and also how I see Souji personally, but I dunno if makes sense for Souji to just come out and say all of that in that particular moment. I wanted the whole sequence to feel messy, for it to feel as if Yosuke has made some kind of personal strides but he hasn't fully accepted himself. I also wanted to show he has some problems with self-loathing, but maybe they feel like they pop up out of nowhere. I'm not sure Kanji's in character either. Er. Tbh, I wrote this in little spurts over the last month and I haven't been sleeping well because I'm working a lot these days, so this all might make sense to my sleep addled brain, but maybe it's not really clear and/or I messed somethings up in my presentation of the characters or the sequence of events. Maybe Yosuke doesn't even sound sincere, er, ah well</p><p>That's enough rambling from me. Regardless, thanks to everyone who read and commented so far, I really appreciated all of your kudos and comments ^^!</p><p>**Edit 2/15: is Souji's reaction okay? His attempt to joke I mean; I hope it doesn't seem like he couldn't wear the swimsuit tops if he wanted to, I was more going for that it's that Yosuke wouldn't try to dress him up the way he's trying to dress up the girls? Because Souji is a cisgender boy, Yosuke doesn't think of him as an object in the same way, even though he's also attracted to him--so the underlying idea is if he wouldn't try to get Souji to wear something sexy in front of other people for his titillation, why would he get the girls to do it? If it comes off as more gnc-phobic like "haha, a guy in a swimsuit!" I'll change it and I'm sorry! I might go in and change it anyway when I have time to make it all work, to make it clearer.</p>
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